Zoran Njeguš ( Serbian Cyrillic: Зоран Његуш; born 25 June 1973) is a Serbian retired 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 ...

player and a former manager. Over the course of his career, he played for

Sloboda Užice A sloboda ( rus, слобода́, p=sləbɐˈda) was a kind of settlement in the history of the Old Russian regions Povolzhye, Central Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for " freedom" and may be loosely ...

, Red Star Belgrade,

Atlético Madrid Club Atlético de Madrid, Sociedad Anónima Deportiva, S.A.D. (; meaning "Athletic Club of Madrid"), known simply as Atleti in the Spanish-speaking world and commonly referred to at international level as Atlético Madrid, is a Spanish profess ...

, and Sevilla. He played for Yugoslavia's national football team seven times, although his last international appearance was after Yugoslavia's name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro.

Club career

Red Star Belgrade

Njeguš joined Red Star Belgrade in the summer of 1995. Over the course of three seasons at Red Star, Njeguš played a total of 103 matches. He played in every match of Red Star's 1996–97 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup campaign up to their elimination against Barcelona in the

second round The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds e ...

Atlético Madrid

On 8 May 1998, Njeguš joined Spanish club

in a 7.5 million DM transfer from Red Star Belgrade. He was coach Arrigo Sacchi's first pick of that year's summer transfer window. He played for three seasons at Atlético Madrid, playing a total of 52 matches.

Sevilla

On 30 July 2001, Sevilla officially announced the loaning of Njeguš from Atlético Madrid. His loan to Sevilla was renewed for a season on 27 July 2002. After almost three seasons with Sevilla, a bitter dispute occurred from a drastic punishment given to him after he returned late from the 2003-2004 winter break. During court proceedings on settling the contract dispute between Sevilla and himself, a jurist stated that Njeguš was "depressed, eating compulsively, and gained 8 kilograms" as a result of Sevilla sanctioning him. Njeguš subsequently retired.

International career

Although Njeguš was not called up for a major international competition, he made his debut under for Yugoslavia's national football team under coach

Slobodan Santrač Slobodan Santrač (, ; 1 July 1946 – 13 February 2016) was a Serbian football manager and player. He is the all-time top scorer of the Yugoslav First League with a total of 218 goals, as well as the top scorer in the history of OFK Beograd. As m ...

on 28 December 1996 in a 3-2 away win against Argentina. Santrač ultimately preferred

Albert Nađ Albert Nađ (, ; born 29 October 1974) is a Serbian professional football manager and a former player who played as a defensive midfielder. He is the assistant manager at Partizan. At international level, Nađ represented Serbia and Montenegro a ...

and Branko Brnović as his defensive midfield picks, with the latter being called up to the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

. Although Njeguš was not called up for that World Cup, he started under coach Milan "Bard" Živadinović in Yugoslavia's first post-World Cup friendly at the Castelão in front of approximately 70,000 people against Brazil on 23 September 1998, which Yugoslavia tied 1-1.

Personal life

In March 2016, Njeguš was arrested for allegedly being involved in real estate fraud in the Zlatibor region. He was released from custody 10 days later.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Njegus, Zoran Men's association football defenders Men's association football midfielders Atlético Madrid footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain First League of Serbia and Montenegro players FK Borac Čačak managers FK Javor Ivanjica managers FK Novi Pazar managers FK Sloboda Užice managers FK Sloboda Užice players FK Spartak Subotica managers La Liga players Red Star Belgrade footballers Segunda División players Serbia and Montenegro expatriate men's footballers Serbia and Montenegro expatriate sportspeople in Spain Serbia and Montenegro men's footballers Serbia and Montenegro men's international footballers Serbian football managers Serbian men's footballers Serbian SuperLiga managers Sevilla FC players Footballers from Užice 1973 births Living people