Đuka Lovrić (born 23 August 1927 in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

- died 20 February 1957 in

FPR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

) was a Yugoslav professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

. He fell in love with the game by watching his older brother, Bosnian

Franjo Lovrić, play.

Club career

After the end of the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

he joined newly-formed ''Sloboda'' with his brother and the two eventually joined SD Torpedo which was formed a year later by the fusion of Sloboda and another Sarajevo-based side, ''Udarnik'' and later renamed ''FK Sarajevo''. He spent 9 years playing for FK Sarajevo during which time he earned 196 caps and scored 78 goals for the maroon-whites, earning him a call-up to the Yugoslavia national team for a friendly against

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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in 1954. He did however not play. In the autumn of 1954 he became terminally ill and soon after had to retire from professional football at the age of 27. He played his last match for FK Sarajevo on 5 June 1955 against

NK Zagreb Nogometni klub Zagreb (''Zagreb Football Club''), commonly known as NK Zagreb or simply Zagreb (), is a Croatian football club based in the capital city of Zagreb. It currently competes in the fifth tier league competition of Croatian footbal ...

Death

Lovrić died in

in 1957, at the age of just 30.

References

1927 births 1957 deaths Footballers from Sarajevo Men's association football midfielders Yugoslav men's footballers FK Sarajevo players Yugoslav First League players Yugoslav Second League players {{Yugoslavia-footy-bio-stub