Full name Ljubomir Bencic Role Football player Name Ljubo Bencic | Years Team Place of death Zagreb, Croatia | |
Date of birth (1905-01-02)2 January 1905 Place of birth Stari Grad, Austria-Hungary Date of death 24 February 1992(1992-02-24) (aged 87) Died February 24, 1992, Zagreb, Croatia | ||
Ljubomir "Ljubo" Benčić (2 January 1905 – 24 February 1992) was a Croatian and Yugoslav football player.
Spending his entire career at Hajduk Split, Benčić was a renowned right winger and centre forward. He started playing top-flight football in 1921 and by 1923 he became the club's best all-time scorer with a total of 43 goals. In 1925 he played his 100th game for the Whites, and in 1930 he scored his 300th goal for Hajduk. Until his retirement in 1935 he scored an amazing 355 goals in 353 official games for Hajduk, which makes him currently Hajduk's third all-time goalscorer (behind Frane Matošić with 729 and Leo Lemešić with 445 goals). With Hajduk he won two Yugoslav championship titles, in 1927 and 1929, and was also the league's top scorer in 1928, scoring 8 goals in 5 games.
Between 1924 and 1927 Benčić earned 5 caps and scored 2 goals for Yugoslavia national football team. He debuted on 28 September 1924 against Czechoslovakia and his last game for the national team was on 28 October 1927 against Czechoslovakia in Prague. The game ended in a disastrous 7–1 defeat, and Benčić scored the only goal for Yugoslavia.
After he stopped playing in 1935 he stayed in football and had two stints as manager of Hajduk: from 1939 to 1941 (the last two seasons before World War II, during the war, and then the first few seasons after the war from 1946 to 1948. When he moved to Zagreb he managed NK Milicioner (which later merged with NK Borac to form NK Zagreb). In 1957 he managed Bologna FC with Bernard Vukas. Upon returning to Croatia he managed NK Trešnjevka and NK Zadar. Benčić died in 1992 in Zagreb.