Edin Sprečo (19 April 1947 – 12 May 2020) was a Bosnian 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 le ...

who played as a winger.

Club career

Born in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yug ...

, present day Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sprečo started playing

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 ...

for the youth team of hometown club Željezničar when he was 12. At the age of 17, he made his debut for the first team. Sprečo scored two goals in his first game and it was clear that he would become a great player. He played 199 league games and scored 61 goals for Željezničar. In total, Sprečo played in 234 games and managed to score 75 goals. He was a member of the Željezničar team that won the

Yugoslav First League The Yugoslav First Federal Football League ( Serbian: Прва савезна лига у фудбалу / ''Prva savezna liga u fudbalu'', hr, Prva savezna liga u nogometu, sl, Prva zvezna nogometna liga, mk, Прва сојузна лига, ...

title in the 1971–72 season. In 1975, Sprečo turned 28 and he was allowed to go abroad, as it was prohibited for under-28 players to leave the domestic clubs at the time. He went to Dutch

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...

club

NAC Breda NAC Breda (), often simply known as NAC, is a Dutch professional football club, based in Breda, Netherlands. NAC Breda play in the Rat Verlegh Stadium, named after their most important player, Antoon 'Rat' Verlegh. They play in the Eerste Divi ...

. He played in Holland alongside compatriots

Miroslav Vardić Miroslav Vardić (Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, Serbian Cyrillic: Мирослав Вардић; 4 December 1944 – 7 May 2018) was a professional association football, footballer who played as a midfielder. In 1975, he played in the Canadian Nat ...

and

Nikola Budišić Nikola Budišić (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Будишић; born 12 October 1947) is a Serbian retired professional footballer who played as a defender, most notably with FK Partizan. In total, he appeared in 348 matches for Partizan (127 d ...

, finishing in 11th place in the

. He also played for, at the time, French

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions ...

club

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...

making his debut against AS Brestoise on 8 January 1978. Sprečo finished his career at the age of 34 in 1981, while playing for Iskra Bugojno.

International career

Sprečo earned 3

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

for the Yugoslavia national team and also scored two goals while playing for the national team from 1967 to 1969. He scored his first goal for Yugoslavia on 12 November 1967, in a 4–0 win against

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

in a

UEFA Euro 1968 qualifying The qualifying round for the 1968 UEFA European Championship consisted of 31 teams divided into eight groups; seven of four teams and one of three teams. Each group winner progressed to the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals were played in two l ...

match. His final international was a June 1969

World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

match away against

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Career statistics

Club

Source:

International

Source:

International goals

Death

Sprečo died at the age of 73 in his hometown of

, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 12 May 2020.

Honours

Player

Željezničar *

: 1971–72

References

External links

Profile
- Reprezentacija
Edin Sprečo
at football database.eu {{DEFAULTSORT:Spreco, Edin 1947 births 2020 deaths Footballers from Sarajevo Men's association football forwards Yugoslav footballers Yugoslavia men's international footballers FK Željezničar Sarajevo players NAC Breda players Stade Rennais F.C. players NK Iskra Bugojno players Yugoslav First League players Eredivisie players Ligue 2 players Yugoslav Second League players Yugoslav expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in the Netherlands Yugoslav expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Expatriate footballers in France Yugoslav expatriate sportspeople in France