The legendary football coach died at the age of 88 after a long battle with cancer.
The legendary football coach died at the age of 88 after a long and serious illness. He was first diagnosed with the disease in 2011, and won twice. He was supposed to celebrate his 88th birthday on Thursday.
He was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, but Blažević fought off the vicious disease. A year after that, he was operated on for melanoma in the initial stage. In September 2019, the serious illness returned once again, and unfortunately this time Ćiro did not emerge as the winner.
Blažević made one of his last public appearances at the end of last year when he received the “Vladimir Beara” award in Zagreb for his contribution to the development of sports culture and social tolerance.
“You gathered in large numbers and showed me a great honor. But this is my last address to the public at a public gathering. It’s over. No more. Goodbye Ćiro! I’m counting the last days, I’m aware of that,” Ćiro said then. After receiving the award, he had no more energy for any conversations with the media, conversations that he was always happy to have and never refused.
Blažević was officially born on February 10, 1935 in Travnik, but Ćiro explained several times that his father Mato “stayed a little longer in the cafe and registered him with the registrar a day later”.
He started his football career in 1954 in the Travni club “Bratstvo”. He then moved to Dinamo, and in 1955 he went to Lokomotiva, and then returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, where he played until 1958. He returned to Croatia in 1958, but this time in Rijeka, where he played until 1961. He then played for the Swiss football club Sion for a year, and he got his first coaching position in the lower league FC Vevey.
The coach of all coaches in his long coaching career led 19 clubs in Switzerland, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China and Iran, and coached five national teams (Switzerland, Croatia, Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chinese U-23).
Two great results marked his career
However, two great results marked his career. Dinamo’s title of champion of the former country in 1982, and the bronze medal of the Croatian national team at the 1998 World Championship in France.
“Always in ’82. There was never a dilemma. Dinamo ’82 is in first place, then nothing for a long time, then my Vatreni,” Blažević said in 2021 at the premiere of the documentary film about Miroslav “Ćira” Blažević by Sabahudin Topalbećirević.
The popular Ćiro sat on Dinamo’s bench at the end of 1980 after Ivan Đalma Marković stepped down two rounds before the end of the autumn part of the championship. In those last two rounds, the team was led by his previous assistant Rudolf Cvek in the status of acting coach.
Blažević started training the team on the Australian tour at the beginning of 1981, and made his debut at the Maracana by playing 0:0 with Crvena zvezda. It was a sensational draw with the then champions of Yugoslavia, because Dinamo started from 14th place in the spring of 1981. In the end, he lifted the team to fifth place.
However, Dinamo’s “explosion” followed the next season, and everything culminated in the unforgettable “blue spring” of 1982, when Dinamo, led by Velimir Zajec, Zlatko Kranjčar, Marko Mlinarić, Stjepan Deverić… rumbled to the championship title, the first after a 24-year wait. A year later, he led the “blues” to the Cup winners’ cup, Dinamo’s last trophy in the former SFRY.
In his first term in Dinamo, Blažević stayed until 1983, then returned in 1986 and stayed until 1988, he led the “Blues” for the third time from 1992 to 1994, and the last time in the 2002/03 season. when he said goodbye to the championship title.
Blažević is the only coach who won the championship with Dinamo both in the former state and in the HNL, he is the only coach who won the Cup both in the SFRY era and in independent Croatia. He led the Maksimir team in as many as four different mandates in three different decades and won three league titles, two Cups and a Super Cup.
Led the national team to the world semi-finals
He certainly achieved the greatest success in his career on the bench of the Croatian national team, which he led to third place at the 1998 World Championship. In total, he led “Vatrene” a record 72 times, but Zlatko Dalić is just behind him with 70 games on the Croatian bench.
The popular Ćiro made his debut on the Croatian bench on March 23, 1994, winning against Spain in a friendly match in Valencia. This was followed by the excellent qualification for the European Championship in England in 1996, in which Croatia was ahead of Italy. At the Euro, the “Vatreni” beat Turkey in the premiere, then dethroned the defending champions Denmark, lost to Portugal, and were eliminated by the later champions, the Germans, in the quarterfinals.
The highlight of Ćira’s time on the Croatian bench was the “French bronze”. In their first appearance at the World Cup, the “Fiery Ones” won third place. They were second in the group from Argentina, and then beat Romania (1:0), outclassed Germany in the quarterfinals (3:0), lost to France in the semifinals (1:2), and celebrated 2:1 against the Netherlands in the third-place match.
“France 1998 was a special competition for me. We overcame numerous difficulties and tough opponents to get that medal, that success meant a lot to all the people in the homeland,” said Ćiro at the time.
He retired from the national team in the fall of 2000 after a poor start to the 2002 World Cup qualifiers in Japan and South Korea (Belgium 0:0, Scotland 1:1). He managed the national team a total of 72 times, achieving 33 wins, 24 draws and 15 losses.
In addition to the Croatian national team, Blažević led the national selections of Switzerland, Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina and China U-23, and on the club level he tried his hand at numerous clubs, including Rijeka, Osijek, Varteks, Hajduk, Zagreb, Zadar, and abroad Nantes, PAOK, Grasshopper, Pristina, Mura…
‘Nothing in my life has passed me by’
“When I summarize my whole life, then I have the need to close myself in my four walls and cry so much that I never stop. Nothing in my life has escaped me! I had two cancers, and now, here, the third one has appeared.
In my childhood, I was so poor that I wore my underpants on a stick, and later in my youth, when I was already married, my wife and I did not know whether we would have lunch or not.
My life was an ordinary calvary and I had to pass it all. Even this coaching job, which may look different from the outside, is nothing but very little satisfaction, and a lot of disappointment,” wrote Ćiro in one of his last posts.
Blažević was married to his wife Zdenko for more than 60 years, with whom he had three children, son Miroslav Junior and daughters Barbara and Catherine.
Ćiro is the only person in history to have received the “Franjo Bučar” State Sports Award three times – in 1998, the annual award for individuals, then in 1998, the annual award for teams as a member of the national team, and in 2007, the award for lifetime achievement.
The Assembly of the Croatian Football Association, at its session on December 22, 2021, awarded him the title of honorary coach.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND AGENCIES
