Admir Smajić (born 7 September 1963) is a Bosnian professional

football manager ''Football Manager'', also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

and former

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who i ...

. He played in the Yugoslavia national team and the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team.

Club career

Partizan

Born in

Bijeljina Bijeljina ( sr-cyrl, Бијељина) is a city and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the provincial center of Semberija, a geographic region in the country's northeast. As of 2013, it has a population of 107,715 ...

,Admir Smajić
at Reprezentacija.rs

SR Bosnia and Herzegovina The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Bosna i Hercegovina, Социјалистичка Pепублика Босна и Херцеговина), commonly referred to as Socia ...

, Smajić began his career in his local town with FK Radnik Bijeljina. In 1979 Radnik reached the 1/8 finals of the

Yugoslav Cup The Yugoslav Cup (; ; , ), officially known between 1923 and 1940 as the King Alexander Cup (; , and between 1947 and 1991 as the Marshal Tito Cup (; ; ; ), was one of two major association football, football competitions in Socialist Federal Re ...

with Smajić being part of the team and that sealed him a move to Belgrade to play in

FK Partizan Fudbalski klub Partizan ( sr-Cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Партизан, ; ), often referred to in English as Partizan Belgrade, is a Serbian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Belgrade. It forms ...

. He made his senior debut with Partizan in the

1979–80 Yugoslav First League The 1979–80 Yugoslav First League was won by Red Star Belgrade. Teams A total of eighteen teams contested the league, including sixteen sides from the 1978–79 season and two sides promoted from the 1978–79 Yugoslav Second League (YSL) as ...

. He played 9 consecutive seasons with Partizan, where he won 3 Yugoslav championships. Whilst at Partizan he represented

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

at the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...

in Los Angeles where they reached the semi-finals before being eliminated by

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Later, in 1987 he also debuted for the main Yugoslavia national team.

Period in Switzerland

In 1988 Smajić moved abroad to Switzerland. He signed for the Swiss Nationalliga A team Neuchâtel Xamax for the 1988–89 Nationalliga A season. Xamax had won the two previous championships. However, they failed to defend their title and could not win the championship during the time that Smajić played for them. Smajić played four and a half seasons for Xamax. They did manage to reach the final, but were runners-up of the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

in 1990. Together with his Xamax teammate Frédéric Chassot, Smajić joined

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

's first team during the winter break of their 1992–93 season under head-coach Friedel Rausch. Smajić played his domestic league debut for his new club in the home game in the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football (soccer), football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several import ...

on 7 March 1993 as Basel played a 1–1 draw with FC Wil. He scored his first goal for the club in the away game on 3 April. It was the second goal of the match as Basel won 4–1 against

Locarno Locarno (; ; Ticinese dialect, Ticinese: ; formerly in ) is a southern Switzerland, Swiss List of towns in Switzerland, town and Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district Locarno (district), Locarno (of which it is the capita ...

. However the team failed in their bid for promotion, losing precious points against the promotion rivals during the last few games of the season. Frédéric Chassot was, however, the team's top goal scorer in this stage with 9 goals and Smajić gave the most assists. During Basel's 1993–94 season, under head-coach

Claude Andrey Claude "Didi" Andrey (born 13 June 1951) is a former Swiss footballer, who most recently managed Yverdon-Sport FC in the Challenge League. Andrey took over FC Basel for their 1993–94 season. His team included the likes of Swiss internation ...

, Smajić's teammates were the likes of Swiss international goalkeeper Stefan Huber, defenders Massimo Ceccaroni, Marco Walker and Samir Tabakovic, the midfielders Mario Cantaluppi, Martin Jeitziner and Ørjan Berg and the Swiss international strikers Dario Zuffi and

Philippe Hertig Philippe Hertig (born 2 July 1965) is a Swiss former association football, footballer who played as a striker (association football), striker during the 1980s and 1990s. He is banker and is now assistant director of Mirabaud Group. In 2009 Herti ...

. Together they won the promotion/relegation group and became Nationalliga B champions thus won promotion to the top flight of Swiss football After six seasons in the second tier. After their promotion, Smajić stayed with Basel for another two and a half season. During his time with the club Smajić played a total of 159 games for Basel scoring a total of 30 goals. 101 of these games were in the Nationalliga B and Nationalliga A, 13 in the

, six in the

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from , "between" and , " betting pool"),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. originally called the International Football Cup, was a summer football competition between European clubs. The competition was dis ...

and 29 were friendly games. He scored 12 goals in the domestic league, 5 in the Swiss Cup, one in the UIC and the other 12 were scored during the test games. During the winter break of the 1997–98 Nationalliga A season Smajić moved to

BSC Young Boys Berner Sport Club Young Boys (YB by short abbreviation, ) is a Swiss professional sports club based in Bern, Switzerland. Its first team has won 17 Swiss league championships and eight Swiss Cups. YB is one of the most successful Swiss footbal ...

and helped them win promotion as well. He played two and a half seasons for their first team and then took up a

player-manager A player–coach (also playing coach, captain–coach, or player–manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. Player–coaches may be head coaches or assistant coaches, and they may make chang ...

role for their reserve team in 1998. He was sacked at the end of the season and he also retired from his playing career.

International career

After representing Yugoslavia at the 1984 Olympics, Smajić later became an A international in the Yugoslavia national team. Between friendly games, and qualifiers for the 1988 UEFA European Championship, he had made 5 appearances in 1987. Almost a decade later, and after the break-up of Yugoslavia, he became part of national team of

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

, making two appearances in 1996. Smajić was given an emotional farewell in what was likely his last appearance for the Bosnian national team on 25 April 2000 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 ...

, a 0–1 result in a friendly against FIFA All Stars (

Thomas Häßler Thomas Jürgen "Icke" Häßler (; born 30 May 1966) is a German former professional footballer. He played as a midfielder throughout his career. At club level, he made a century of appearances for four teams: 1. FC Köln, Karlsruher SC and 186 ...

, Roberto Baggio,

Mustapha Hadji Mustapha Hadji (; born 16 November 1971) is a Moroccan football coach and former player. He was named the 50th greatest African player of all time by the African football expert Ed Dove. Early life Hadji was born in Ifrane Atlas-Saghir, Morocc ...

, Bernard Lama and Dunga, among others that made up the All Stars team).

Managerial career

Throughout his managerial career, Smajić didn't manage many teams. From 1998 to 1999 he was the

, from 2001 to 2002 head coach of the Bosnia and Herzegovina U21 national team, from 2003 to 2004 manager of Yverdon-Sport FC and for a short time in 2004, from April to June, manager of

FC Sion Football Club Sion, commonly known as simply FC Sion or Sion, is a Swiss Association football, football club from the city of Sion, Switzerland, Sion. The club was founded in 1909 and play their home matches at the Stade Tourbillon. They have wo ...

. It wasn't until 2011 that Smajić got his next managerial duty, being the Yverdon-Sport assistant manager to Italian manager Vittorio Bevilacqua. In 2014 he came back to Sion, becoming an assistant to German manager Jochen Dries. After Dries got sacked in December 2014, Smajić took over as new manager of the Sion II team. He managed the II team until September 2015. In June 2018, Smajić was named as the new team manager of

Bosnian Premier League The Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina (; ; sr-Cyrl, Премијер лига Босне и Херцеговине), officially known as the Wwin League of Bosnia and Herzegovina for sponsorship purposes, is the top tier football leagu ...

club Sloboda Tuzla, while Milenko Bošnjaković became the new manager of Sloboda. On 13 July 2018, only eight games before the start of the season, Smajić decided to leave Sloboda, stating that because of his back issues he needed to get a back

surgery Surgery is a medical specialty that uses manual and instrumental techniques to diagnose or treat pathological conditions (e.g., trauma, disease, injury, malignancy), to alter bodily functions (e.g., malabsorption created by bariatric surgery s ...

in Switzerland. On 10 June 2019, one year after leaving Sloboda, he came back to the club and became its new team manager, signing a one-year contract. Shortly after, Mile Lazarević was announced as the new manager of Sloboda and worked alongside Smajić. On 1 October 2019, a few days after Lazarević resigned from his managerial position, Smajić also decided to resign from his position and leave Sloboda for a second time.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

Partizan *

Yugoslav First League The Yugoslav First League ( Bosnian: Prva savezna liga u fudbalu, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Прва савезна лига у фудбалу, Prva savezna liga u fudbalu, , , , , ) was the premier football league in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941) ...

: 1982–83, 1985–86, 1986–87 Neuchâtel Xamax * Swiss Super Cup: 1988 Yugoslavia *

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

Third place:

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

References

Sources

*Rotblau: Jahrbuch Saison 2017/2018. Publisher: FC Basel Marketing AG. *Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage

External links