Admir Smajić

Admir Smajić (born 7 September 1963) is a Bosnian professional football manager and former player.

Admir Smajić
Personal information
Full name Admir Smajić
Date of birth (1963-09-07) 7 September 1963
Place of birth Bijeljina, SFR Yugoslavia
Height 1.79 m (5 ft 10 1⁄2 in)
Playing position(s) Defender
Youth career
0000–1979 Radnik Bijeljina
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1979–1988 Partizan 194 (9)
1988–1993 Neuchâtel Xamax 99 (15)
1993–1997 Basel 111 (12)
1997–1999 Young Boys 26 (2)
Total 430 (38)
National team
1984 Yugoslav Olympic 5 (0)
1986–1987 Yugoslavia 4 (1)
1995–1996 Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 (0)
Teams managed
1998 Young Boys
1999 Young Boys
2001–2002 Bosnia and Herzegovina U21
2003–2004 Yverdon-Sport
2004 Sion
2011 Yverdon-Sport (assistant)
2014 Sion (assistant)
2015 Sion II
2018 Sloboda Tuzla (team manager)
2019 Sloboda Tuzla (team manager)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

He played for the Yugoslav national team and the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team.

Club career

Partizan

Born in Bijeljina,[1] SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Smajić began his career in his local town with FK Radnik Bijeljina. In 1979 Radnik reached the 1/8 finals of the Yugoslav Cup with Smajić being part of the team[2] and that sealed him a move to Belgrade to play in FK Partizan.[1] He made his senior debut with Partizan in the 1979–80 Yugoslav First League.[1]

He played 9 consecutive seasons with Partizan, where he won 3 Yugoslav championships. Whilst at Partizan he represented Yugoslavia at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles where they reached the semi-finals before being eliminated by France. Later, in 1987 he also debuted for the main Yugoslav national team.[1]

Period in Switzerland

In 1988, he moved abroad to Neuchâtel Xamax who had just won the two previous editions of the Swiss Nationalliga A. Neuchâtel Xamax failed to win the title during the time Smajić played, and all they managed was to be runners-up of the Swiss Cup in 1990.

He played there for almost five years before joining FC Basel in the winter break of the 1992–93 season.[1] He played with Basel for the following 4 years, and then he moved to BSC Young Boys in the winter break of the 1997–98 season.[1] He eventually took up a player-manager role in 1998. He was sacked at the end of the season and he also retired from playing.

International career

After representing Yugoslavia at the 1984 Olympics, Smajić later became an A international for the Yugoslav national team. Between friendly games, and qualifiers for the 1988 UEFA European Championship, he had made 4 appearances and scored one goal, between 1986 and 1987.[1]

Almost a decade later, and after the break-up of Yugoslavia, he became part of national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina, making two appearances in 1996.[3] Smajić was given an emotional farewell in what was likely his last appearance for the Bosnian national team on 25 April 2000 in Sarajevo, a 0–1 result in a friendly against FIFA All Stars (Thomas Häßler, Roberto Baggio, Mustapha Hadji, 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 player-manager of BSC Young Boys, 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.

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.[4] 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 Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina club FK Sloboda Tuzla, while Milenko Bošnjaković became the new manager of Sloboda.[5] 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 in Switzerland.[6]

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.[7] Shortly after, Mile Lazarević was announced as the new manager of Sloboda and worked alongside Smajić.[8] On 1 October 2019, a few days after Lazarević resigned from his managerial position,[9] Smajić also decided to resign from his position and leave Sloboda for a second time.[10]

Managerial statistics
As of 19 September 2015
Managerial record by team and tenure
Team From To Record
GWDLWin %
Yverdon-Sport July 2003 April 2004 25 8 8 9 032.00
Sion April 2004 June 2004 7 2 2 3 028.57
Sion II July 2015 September 2015 8 3 3 2 037.50
Total 40 13 13 14 032.50

Honours

Player

Partizan

Yugoslavia

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References
  1. Admir Smajić at Reprezentacija.rs
  2. O klubu Archived 8 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine at FK Radnik Bijeljina official website, retrieved 8-2-2015 (in Serbian)
  3. Admir Smajić at National-Football-Teams.com
  4. "Admir Smajic zurück im Trainergeschäft" (in German). nzz.ch. 30 September 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  5. "Slavko Petrović više nije trener Slobode, umjesto njega imenovan Admir Smajić" (in Bosnian). Klix.ba. 8 June 2018. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  6. "Smajić napustio Slobodu, Bošnjaković čeka stav uprave" (in Bosnian). Klix.ba. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  7. A.K. (10 June 2019). "Admir Smajić preuzeo Slobodu: Klubu ću pokušati vratiti vrijednost koja mu pripada" (in Bosnian). Klix.ba. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  8. A. Lendo (18 June 2019). "Mile Lazarević novi trener FK Sloboda!" (in Bosnian). sportsport.ba. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  9. M. Šljivak (28 September 2019). "Mile Lazarević podnio ostavku!" (in Bosnian). sportsport.ba. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
  10. A. Pašić (1 October 2019). "I Admir Smajić napustio FK Sloboda!" (in Bosnian). sportsport.ba. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
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