Stjepan Bobek

Stjepan Bobek

Personal information
Date of birth	3 December 1923(1923-12-03)
Place of birth	Zagreb, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Date of death	22 August 2010(2010-08-22) (aged 86)
Place of death	Belgrade, Serbia
Playing position	Forward
Youth career
1936–1938	HŠK Derbi
1938–1942	ŠK Zagreb
1942–1944	HŠK Ličanin
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1942	Admira Wacker
1944–1945	Građanski Zagreb
1945–1959	Partizan	198	(121)
National team
1946–1956	Yugoslavia	63	(38)
Teams managed
1959	Legia Warsaw
1960–1963	Partizan
1963–1967	Panathinaikos
1967–1969	Partizan
1969–1970	Olympiacos
1970	Altay
1972	Dinamo Zagreb
1976–1978	Espérance
1978–1981	Vardar
	Zemun
Honours Men's Football Competitor for Yugoslavia Olympic Games Silver 1948 London Team Silver 1952 Helsinki Team
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Stjepan Bobek (Zagreb, 3 December 1923 – Belgrade, 22 August 2010) was a football striker from Yugoslavia, and later a football manager. An ethnic Croat, Bobek started playing at a very young age and had spells with several clubs in Zagreb but is mainly remembered for his time at the Serbian side Partizan Belgrade, where he moved to following the end of World War II. He played for Partizan between 1945 and 1959 helping them win 2 Yugoslav First League titles and 4 Yugoslav Cups, and was named the club's greatest player in history in 1995.

Internationally, he is the all-time top scorer for the Yugoslavia national team, scoring 38 goals in 63 appearances between 1946 and 1956, and was member of Yugoslav squads which won two Olympic silver medals (in 1948 and 1952) and played in two FIFA World Cups (in 1950 and 1954).

After retiring from active football in 1959, he was a successful manager, winning Yugoslav and Greek national titles with Partizan and Panathinaikos, and also had managing spells in Poland and Tunisia.

Career

Bobek was born in Zagreb and started playing at the age of 13 for Viktorija, a lower league club, using his brother's registration papers. When he was 20 he became the center-forward of Građanski Zagreb.

He was the top scorer of the Yugoslav First League twice, in 1945 (8 goals) and 1954 (21 goals).

He came to FK Partizan in 1945 and played for them until 1958. During his time in Partizan, he played 468 games and scored 403 goals, still holding the club record. Bobek won two Yugoslav League titles and the Yugoslav Cup four times.

Bobek played in two World Cups, in Brazil 1950 (where he scored one goal in the 4-1 win over Mexico) and in Switzerland 1954. He also played in two Olympic Games, in London 1948 (where he scored 4 goals and Yugoslavia won the silver medal) and in Helsinki 1952 (he scored 3 goals in the tournament and Yugoslavia won the Silver Medal). On 8 June 1947 he scored a record 9 goals in a game against 14 Octobar in Niš.

After retiring from the play, he became a football manager. In 1959 he became the coach of CWKS Warszawa in Poland, moving back to Yugoslavia the next season to manage FK Partizan. The team won three successive Yugoslav League championships under him, after which he was replaced by Kiril Simonovski in 1963. In 1964 he had another spell in Warsaw, and then he moved to Greece where he led Panathinaikos in the 1960s. In the 1967/68 and 1968/69 seasons he again returned to manage FK Partizan. In 1970, he moved to Olympiacos. In 1972, he was the manager of Dinamo Zagreb. He also coached Vardar Skopje and led it to the title of the Second League of the Republic of Macedonia.

In 1995 he was named the all-time greatest player of Partizan Belgrade. In 2009 Bobek's biography written by sports journalist Fredi Kramer was published. Bobek died shortly after midnight on 22 August 2010 in Belgrade. He was buried in Belgrade's Alley of Distinguished Citizens at Novo Groblje.

Honours

As player

Partizan

• Yugoslav First League (2): 1946–47, 1948–49
• Yugoslav Cup (4): 1947, 1952, 1954, 1957

Yugoslavia

• Olympic Silver Medal (2): 1948, 1952

Individual

• Yugoslav First League top scorer (2): 1945, 1953–54

As manager

Partizan

• Yugoslav First League (3): 1960–61, 1961–62, 1962–63

Panathinaikos

• Greek Championship (2): 1963–64, 1964–65
• Greek Cup (1): 1967

Vardar

• Yugoslav Second League (1): 1978–79

External links

• Stjepan Bobek – FIFA competition record
• Stjepan Bobek at National-Football-Teams.com
• Stjepan Bobek international stats at Reprezentacija.rs (Serbian)