Rajko Janjanin ( sr-Cyrl, Pajкo Jaњaнин; born 18 January 1957) is a Yugoslav of

Croatian Serb The Serbs of Croatia ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", Срби у Хрватској, Srbi u Hrvatskoj) or Croatian Serbs ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", хрватски Срби, hrvatski Srbi) constitute the largest national minority in Croa ...

descent former international

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 ...

player, who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Janjanin started his professional career in 1975 playing for

Dinamo Zagreb Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb ( en, Dinamo Zagreb Citizens' Football Club, link=yes, italics=yes), commonly referred to as GNK Dinamo Zagreb or simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo ...

, with whom he played for five years, winning the

Yugoslav Cup The Yugoslav Cup ( hr, Pokal Jugoslavije; sr, Куп Југославије; sl, Pokal Jugoslavije, mk, Куп на Југославија), officially known between 1923 and 1940 as the King Alexander Cup ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Kup kralja Aleksandra, ...

in 1980. He then joined

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-Cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club, ), commonly known as Red Star Belgrade in English-language media, is a Serbian professional football club based in Bel ...

for almost five years. His shining moment took place on 19 September 1984 when he scored a second half hat-trick for Red Star in the 3–2 win over Benfica for the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

after Red star was down by 0–2. With Red Star he won two Yugoslav Championship and a Yugoslav cup in 1982, while he became an international footballer. In November 1984, he moved to

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and transferred to OFI where he performed very well and had a decisive contribution to the

Cretan Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

team winning second place in the

Greek Championship The Super League Greece 1 ( el, Ελληνική Σούπερ Λιγκ 1), or Super League 1, is the highest professional association football league in Greece. The league was formed on 16 July 2006 and replaced ''Alpha Ethniki'' at the top of ...

in 1986. While his contract was coming to an end, he was offered a renewal by the management of OFI, but there was a rift since he was asking for 18 million drachmas for a two-year contract and he was offered much less money. AEK Athens, which were interested, included him in their team in December 1986, fully meeting the demands of the footballer and despite the opposition from OFI. He played in AEK until the summer of 1988, with which he did not score a high performance, but sometimes showed samples of his footballing quality and ended his career there in 1988.

International career

Janjanin was capped twice for

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

Personal life

His brother Željko was also a footballer.Željko Janjanin
at Povijest Dinama

Honours

: 1980

Red Star A red star, five-pointed and filled, is a symbol that has often historically been associated with communist ideology, particularly in combination with the hammer and sickle, but is also used as a purely socialist symbol in the 21st century. I ...

* Yugoslav Championship: 1981, 1984 *

: 1982, 1985

References

External links

Profile on Serbian federation official site
1957 births Living people Sportspeople from Karlovac NK Karlovac players GNK Dinamo Zagreb players Serbs of Croatia Serbian footballers Yugoslav footballers Yugoslavia men's international footballers Men's association football midfielders AEK Athens F.C. players OFI Crete F.C. players Red Star Belgrade footballers Yugoslav First League players Super League Greece players Serbian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Greece Mediterranean Games gold medalists for Yugoslavia Competitors at the 1979 Mediterranean Games Mediterranean Games medalists in football {{Serbia-footy-midfielder-stub