Damir Krznar (born 10 July 1972) is a Croatian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

manager and former player who is the current manager of the Slovenian PrvaLiga side

Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...

Playing career

Club

Krznar spent his career playing for Varteks, Dinamo Zagreb and

Inter Zaprešić Inter may refer to: Association football clubs * Inter Milan, an Italian club * SC Internacional, a Brazilian club * Inter Miami CF, an American club * FC Inter Sibiu, a Romanian club * FC Inter Turku, a Finnish club * FK Inter Bratislava, a forme ...

International

He made his international debut coming in as a second half substitute for Robert Jarni against Poland on 22 April 1998, which was his only appearance for the Croatia national team.

Managerial career

Career as assistant

In the period between 2010 and 2021, Krznar worked as an assistant coach to Ilija Lončarević at

, to Krunoslav Jurčić, Ante Čačić, Branko Ivanković and Zoran Mamić at Dinamo Zagreb, and to Mamić at Al Nassr,

Al Ain Al Ain ( ar, ٱلْعَيْن, , ) is a city in the western side of Tawam (region), Tuwwam region and the seat of the administrative division of its namesake, Al-Ain Region, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. ...

and Al Hilal. He served as Dinamo interim manager on two occasions; from August to September 2013, and from July to September 2015.

Dinamo Zagreb

After Zoran Mamić was sentenced to five years in prison on 15 March 2021, he resigned on the same day and was succeeded by Krznar, who made his debut as Dinamo head coach on 18 March in a 3–0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Stadion Maksimir, thus qualifying for the quarter-finals of the

2020–21 UEFA Europa League The 2020–21 UEFA Europa League was the 50th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 12th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. Villarreal defeated Manchester United i ...

for the first time in the history of the club. Furthermore, Krznar became the first ever manager to eliminate Spurs head coach

José Mourinho José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix GOIH (; born 26 January 1963), is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who is the current head coach of Italian Serie A club Roma. Once dubbed "The Special One" by the British ...

from the Europa League (the Portuguese took part in the competition two more times before–in 2002–03 coaching Porto, and in 2016–17 coaching

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

–winning both editions). However, Dinamo went on to lose their quarter-final fixture against Villarreal 3–1 on

aggregate Aggregate or aggregates may refer to: Computing and mathematics * collection of objects that are bound together by a root entity, otherwise known as an aggregate root. The aggregate root guarantees the consistency of changes being made within the ...

. On 9 May 2021, Dinamo secured its 22nd Croatian First League title with a 5–1 victory over

Rijeka Rijeka ( , , ; also known as Fiume hu, Fiume, it, Fiume ; local Chakavian: ''Reka''; german: Sankt Veit am Flaum; sl, Reka) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located in Primor ...

, and the 32nd national league title in total. Ten days later, Dinamo also won the

Croatian Cup Croatian Cup may refer to: *Croatian Football Cup *Croatian Football Super Cup * Croatian Women's Football Cup *Croatian Basketball Cup, also known as Krešimir Ćosić Cup *Croatian Handball Cup *Croatian Water Polo Cup *Croatian Minute Movie Cup ...

title, with a victory against Istra 1961 by a scoreline of 6–3. Krznar left Dinamo on 1 December 2021 after being eliminated by Rijeka in the quarter-finals of the Croatian Cup. However, the next month, he took over the reserve team of Dinamo, playing in the

Croatian Second League The Prva nogometna liga ( en, First football league), commonly Prva NL or 1. NL, is the second tier of the football league system in Croatia. The league was formed in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Yugoslav Secon ...

, where he stayed until the team was dissolved following the 2021–22 season.

Maribor

On 16 August 2022, Krznar took charge of the reigning Slovenian PrvaLiga champions

, signing a two-year contract. At the time of his arrival, Maribor was sitting in last place in the league with only three points out of five games.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

Dinamo Zagreb *

Prva HNL The Hrvatska nogometna liga () ( en, Croatian football league), also known as HNL or for sponsorship reasons the SuperSport HNL, is the top Croatian professional football league competition, established in 1992. Previously, it was called Prva H ...

: 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–00, 2002–03 *

: 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2003–04 * Croatian Super Cup: 2002, 2003

Manager

Dinamo Zagreb * Prva HNL:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

* Croatian Cup:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Krznar, Damir 1972 births Living people People from Zabok Men's association football midfielders Croatian footballers Croatia men's international footballers NK Varaždin (1931–2015) players GNK Dinamo Zagreb players NK Inter Zaprešić players Croatian Football League players Croatian football managers GNK Dinamo Zagreb managers NK Maribor managers Croatian Football League managers Croatian expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Slovenia Croatian expatriate sportspeople in Slovenia Croatian expatriate sportspeople in the United Arab Emirates