Playing position Name Drazen Besek Years Team Role Football player | 1982–1984 Varteks Position Midfielder 1984–1985 Olimpija Ljubljana | |
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Date of birth (1963-03-10) 10 March 1963 (age 52) Place of birth Varazdin, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia | ||
Coach and Captain's comments before the second-leg match
Dražen Besek (born 10 March 1963) is a Croatian coach and former professional football midfield player. He was managed of Birkirkara. While as a player he was predominantly remembered for his time with Croatian teams Varteks and Dinamo Zagreb before moving around Europe where he joined several other clubs before he retired. After his playing career ended he would go into management where he coached his hometown football club Varteks on several occasions before moving away from Croatia and joining Polish side Zagłębie Lubin as well as Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua.
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Club career
Besek played for Dinamo Zagreb in the Yugoslav First League. Later he joined French Stade de Vallauris, Danish Ikast FS (now called FC Midtjylland) and Austrian SV Casino Salzburg (now called FC Red Bull Salzburg).
Coaching career
Besek would return to his hometown football club of Varteks as a player-coach within the Croatian 1998–99 Prva HNL league season and guided the club to a fifth spot at the end of the campaign. This was followed by a brief spell at second tier club Čakovec before he returned to another top tier club with Slaven Belupo where in the 2001–02 Prva HNL where he guided them to a respectable sixth. This saw Varteks interested in his services again where within the 2002–03 Prva HNL campaign he aided them to an improved third at the end of the season before Besek made his first move abroad with Polish club Zagłębie Lubin.
After a disappointing time in Poland he joined top tier Slovenian club Drava Ptuj for a brief period before returning to Varteks for the third time as a manager. On 26 December 2009 Besek decided to leave the club on mutual consent after accepting a position from top tier Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua where he was an assistant coach to Miroslav Blažević. After his one-year contract with the club expired he followed Blažević to become an assistant coach for the China U-23 team.
On 10 August 2011 he returned to Shanghai Shenhua but this time as the head coach to replace Xi Zhikang for the rest of the season. After leaving Shenhua at the end of 2011, Besek took over NK Zagreb in March 2012. In September 2012, he resigned on his position after sustaining seven consecutive defeats in the 2012–13 Prva HNL. Besek would return to China with second tier club Hunan Billows F.C. for the start of the 2013 China League One campaign.
