Josip Balatinac (born 7 March 1979) is a Croatian retired

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 ...

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

Club career

In 1997 Balatinac joined

NK Osijek Nogometni klub Osijek (), commonly referred to as NK Osijek (), is a Croatian professional association football, football sports club, club from Osijek. Founded in 1947, it was the club from Slavonia with the most seasons in the Yugoslav First Le ...

coming through youth ranks of famous Osijek youth football academy. He spent nine seasons with

where he gradually became one of the best players, earning a national team cap. In the summer of 2006 Balatinac was supposed to join

SV Pasching SV, Sv, sv, etc. may refer to: Places and language * El Salvador, ISO 3166-1 country code SV * Province of Savona, (vehicle registration plate code), Italy * South Vietnam, an extinct state * Svalbard, Norway, FIPS country code SV * Swedish langu ...

. It's still unclear if Balatinac signed the contract and then went AWOL or if he never even signed for Austrian team. However, Balatinac came back from Austria after few days claiming he's homesick and continue to prepare for new season with

. Few weeks afterwards he signed with

Hajduk Split Hrvatski Nogometni klub Hajduk Split, commonly referred to as Hajduk Split (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Split, that competes in the Croatian First League, the top tier in Croatian football. Since 1979, the club's home ...

. The club's financial problems lead to the club owing Balatinac several wages, and he filed for termination of his contract in early 2007, which was approved in the November of that year. He signed with the

Druga HNL The Prva nogometna liga (), commonly Prva NL or 1. NL, is the second tier of the football league system in Croatia. The league was formed in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Yugoslav Second League. The 1. NL is ope ...

side NK Hrvatski Dragovoljac where he spent the rest of the 2007/08 season. Subsequently he all but retired for professional football, playing for a string of lower-tier clubs in his native region of Baranja, settling in

Draž Draž (, , sr-Cyrl, Драж) is a village and municipality in Osijek-Baranja County, Croatia. There are 2,767 inhabitants in the municipality. Geography The municipality of Draž is situated between border with Hungary in the north, border with ...

last playing for NK Mladost.

International career

He made one appearance for the

Croatia national football team The Croatia national football team () represents Croatia in men's international Association football, football matches. It is governed by the Croatian Football Federation (HNS), the governing body for football in Croatia. It is a member of UEF ...

, in a friendly against

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

at the 2006 Carlsberg Cup tournament on 29 January 2006. He has also represented his country at under-21 and under-19 levels.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balatinac, Josip 1979 births Living people People from Popovac Footballers from Osijek-Baranja County Men's association football midfielders Croatian men's footballers Croatia men's youth international footballers Croatia men's under-21 international footballers Croatia men's international footballers NK Osijek players HNK Hajduk Split players NK Hrvatski Dragovoljac players Croatian Football League players First Football League (Croatia) players