Bojan Prašnikar (born 3 February 1953) is a Slovenian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

and former player who played as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

. Prašnikar managed the Slovenia national team three times, between 1991 and 1993, in 1998, and between 2002 and 2004.

Playing career

Prašnikar started his professional football career at his home town club

Šmartno ob Paki Šmartno ob Paki () is a settlement in the lower Paka Valley in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Šmartno ob Paki. The area is part of the traditional region of Styria. It is now included in the Savinja Statistical Regio ...

, where he was the top scorer of the

Slovenian Republic League The Slovenian Republic Football League () was the highest Association football, football league in Slovenia within the Yugoslav football league system, Yugoslav football system. During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the league was known as the Ljubl ...

in the 1975–76 season. After the season, he moved to Olimpija of

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) ...

, spending only one year there before returning to Šmartno, where he played for the next six seasons. During this period he was the league's top scorer on three occasions and won the Slovenian national league title in 1981. In 1983, he transferred to SVG Bleiburg of Austria where he played for one season before retiring.

Coaching career

After retirement, Prašnikar focused on coaching, starting his managerial career at Elkroj, before moving on to coach various other clubs –

Celje Celje (, , ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, third-largest city in Slovenia. It is a regional center of the traditional Slovenian region of Styria (Slovenia), Styria and the administrative seat of the City Municipality of Celje. Th ...

, Mura, Olimpija, and Rudar Velenje. His most successful spell however, came while in charge of

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

from 1996 to 2000. Under his guidance, the club won the Slovenian league four times and qualified for the group phase of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

(the only Slovenian club to ever achieve this), after defeating

Genk Genk () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city located in the Belgian Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality comprises only the town of Genk itself. It ...

and

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

in the qualifying rounds. Prašnikar was the manager of the Slovenia national team during three time spans. After Slovenia's independence in 1991 he was named the first head coach of the national team. He remained in the position until December 1993, when

Zdenko Verdenik Zdenko Verdenik (born 2 May 1949) is a Slovenian football manager and former player who played as a winger. He coached NK Olimpija, Slovenia under-21 team, Slovenia senior team, FK Austria Wien, JEF United Ichihara, Nagoya Grampus Eight, V ...

took charge of the Slovenian affairs until the end of the unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the

FIFA World Cup 1998 The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...

. Prašnikar was re-installed head coach in December 1997, but his second spell at the helm of Slovenia lasted for only four month as in April 1998 he resigned due to his commitments with Maribor on club-level. He was replaced by

Srečko Katanec Srečko Katanec (; born 16 July 1963) is a Slovenian retired football manager and player. At international level, he was capped for both the Yugoslavia and Slovenia national teams. A former midfielder, who was also capable of playing as a defen ...

. His third spell in charge of the Slovenian national team started in July 2002, when the

Football Association of Slovenia The Football Association of Slovenia ( or NZS) is the governing body of football in Slovenia. It organizes the Slovenian PrvaLiga, first division (1. SNL), Slovenian Second League, second division (2. SNL), Slovenian Third League, third division ...

appointed him the successor of Katanec after the disappointing first round finish of the national team at the

FIFA World Cup 2002 The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea/Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial football world championship for men's national teams organized by FIFA. It was held from 31 May to 30 June 2002 at sites in South Korea a ...

and Katanec's swift resignation. This job lasted until May 2004. Not qualified for the

2004 European Football Championship The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football competition contested by the List of men's national associatio ...

tournament, the Slovenian FA replaced Prašnikar with Branko Oblak, who was the head coach of the Slovenia under-21 at that time. On 28 September 2007, he was appointed by

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

outfit

Energie Cottbus FC Energie Cottbus (Lower Sorbian: ''Energija Chóśebuz'') is a Football in Germany, German football club based in Cottbus, Brandenburg. It was founded in 1963 as SC Cottbus in what was East Germany. After the German reunification, reunificatio ...

, who had parted company with head coach Petrik Sander five days earlier. Prašnikar, who was in charge of Primorje in the Slovenian league before that, signed a deal until June 2010 with the former German Cup finalist. On 30 May 2009, Prašnikar announced his leaving at the end of the season from Energie Cottbus, his last game was the

2008–09 Bundesliga The 2008–09 Bundesliga was the 46th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football league. The season began on 15 August 2008 with a 2–2 draw between defending champions Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV and ended with the last matches o ...

relegation playoff game on 31 May 2009 against 1. FC Nürnberg which he lost 5–0 on aggregate. On 6 April 2010, Prašnikar signed a contract until the end of the season with Slovenian team Rudar Velenje. In April 2012, Prašnikar was dismissed by Olimpija Ljubljana after only eleven league games in charge.

Personal life

His son Luka and daughter

Lara Lara may refer to: People * Lara (name), can be a given name or a surname in several languages * Lara (mythology), a naiad nymph, daughter of the river Almo in Ovid's ''Fasti'' Places *Lara (state), a state in Venezuela * Electoral district ...

are both footballers.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prasnikar, Bojan 1953 births Living people People from the Municipality of Šmartno ob Paki Men's association football forwards Yugoslav men's footballers NK Šmartno ob Paki players NK Olimpija Ljubljana (1945–2005) players Yugoslav expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Austria Yugoslav expatriate sportspeople in Austria Yugoslav football managers Slovenian football managers NK Celje managers Slovenia national football team managers NK Olimpija Ljubljana (1945–2005) managers NK Rudar Velenje managers NK Maribor managers AEL Limassol managers NK Primorje managers FC Energie Cottbus managers NK Olimpija Ljubljana (2005) managers Slovenian PrvaLiga managers 2. Bundesliga managers Slovenian expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Cyprus Expatriate football managers in Germany Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Germany