Bojan Prašnikar

Bojan Prašnikar (born 3 February 1953) is a Slovenian football manager, former player, and the first manager of Slovenia national football team. Prašnikar managed Slovenia national football team three times, between 1991–1993, in 1998, and between 2002–2004.

Bojan Prašnikar
Personal information
Date of birth (1953-02-03) 3 February 1953
Place of birth Šmartno ob Paki, SFR Yugoslavia
Height 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)
Playing position(s) Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
0000–1976 Šmartno ob Paki
1976–1977 Olimpija
1977–1983 Šmartno ob Paki
1983–1984 SVG Bleiburg
Teams managed
1984–1989 Elkroj
1989–1991 Celje
1991–1992 Mura
1993–1994 Olimpija
1995–1996 Rudar Velenje
1996–2000 Maribor
2000–2001 Olimpija
2001–2002 Maribor
2002–2004 Slovenia
2004–2005 Mura
2005–2006 AEL Limassol
2006–2007 Primorje
2007–2009 FC Energie Cottbus
2010–2011 Rudar Velenje
2011–2012 Olimpija Ljubljana
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Playing career

Prašnikar started his professional football career at his home town club NK Šmartno ob Paki, where he was the top scorer of the Slovenian Republic League in the 1975–76 season.[1] After the season, he moved to Olimpija of Yugoslav First League, spending only one year there before returning to Šmartno, where he played for the next six seasons.[1] During this period he was the league's top scorer on three occasions and won the Slovenian national league title in 1981.[1] In 1983, he transferred to SVG Bleiburg of Austria where he played for one season before retiring.[1]

Coaching career

After retirement, Prašnikar focused on coaching, starting his managerial career at Elkroj, before moving on to coach various other clubs – Celje, Mura, Olimpija, and Rudar Velenje. His most successful spell however, came while in charge of Maribor 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 only Slovenian club to ever achieve this), after defeating Genk and Lyon in the qualifying rounds.

Bojan Prašnikar was the manager of the Slovenian national football 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 took charge of the Slovenian affairs until the end of the unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the FIFA World Cup 1998. 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.

His third spell in charge of the Slovenian national team started in July 2002, when the Football Association of Slovenia appointed him the successor of Katanec after the disappointing first round finish of the national team at the FIFA World Cup 2002 and Katanec's swift resignation. This job lasted until May 2004. Not qualified for the 2004 European Football Championship tournament, the Slovenian FA replaced Prašnikar with Branko Oblak, who was the head coach of the Slovenian U21 at that time.

On 28 September 2007, he was appointed by German Bundesliga outfit Energie Cottbus, who had parted company with head coach Petrik Sander five days earlier. Prašnikar, who was in charge of Primorje Ajdovščina in the Slovenian league before that, signed a deal until June 2010 with the former German Cup finalist.[2] On 30 May 2009 Prašnikar announced his leaving at the end of the season from FC Energie Cottbus,[3] his last game was the 2008–09 Bundesliga 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 the Slovenian team NK Rudar Velenje.[4]

gollark: Why not both?
gollark: Didn't someone find a while ago that there were 9012 members, but many fewer "styropyro fans"?
gollark: Yes, we can.
gollark: I mean, not the cat one, cats are mostly fine.
gollark: Aren't most of those things quite obviously bad?

References
  1. "Selektorji reprezentance – Bojan Prašnikar". nzs.si (in Slovenian). Football Association of Slovenia. Archived from the original on 1 October 2006. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  2. Career profile (from FC Energie Cottbus website) Archived 21 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "FC Energie und Bojan Prasnikar lösen Vertrag". Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 30 May 2009.
  4. Prašnikar prevzel vodenje članske ekipe NK Rudar Archived 14 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
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