Robert Prosinečki (; born 12 January 1969) is a professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. Born in West Germany, he represented Yugoslavia and later Croatia at international level.
Prosinečki began his senior career at Red Star Belgrade, winning three Yugoslav First League titles and the European Cup in 1991. He later played in Spain for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Oviedo and Sevilla. He subsequently won three Croatian league titles with Dinamo Zagreb, and also played in Belgium, England and Slovenia.
At international level, Prosinečki was named best player of the tournament as Yugoslavia won the 1987 FIFA World Youth Championship, and finished runner-up with the under-21 side at the 1990 European Championship. He was also voted Best Young Player at the 1990 FIFA World Cup. For Croatia, he won 49 caps between 1994 and 2002, featuring at UEFA Euro 1996 and the World Cups of 1998 and 2002, and helping the team to third place in 1998.
After retiring, Prosinečki served as assistant manager of the Croatia national team from 2006 to 2010 before being appointed manager of Red Star Belgrade in December 2010. He left in 2012 and, two months later, took charge of Turkish club Kayserispor. At international level, he coached the Azerbaijan national team from 2014 to 2017 and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2018 to 2019. He later returned to manage Kayserispor and also coached Denizlispor, Olimpija Ljubljana and Rudeš.
Early life and career Prosinečki was born in Schwenningen, West Germany, into a family of Yugoslav gastarbeiters. His father Đuro Prosinečki (1939–2003) was a Croat, hailing from the Gornji Čemehovec village near Kraljevec na Sutli, and his mother Emilija Đoković is a Serb, originally from the Ježevica village near Čačak.
A few years after his birth, the family moved to Nürtingen near Stuttgart where, by the decision of his passionate football enthusiast father who ran a construction business for a living, five-year-old Robert was signed up for the Stuttgarter Kickers youth system. Closely monitored by his father, who reportedly drove him to and from every practice and watched his every match, the youngster progressed along in the club's youth categories. The parents decided to move back to the Zagorje region of SR Croatia within SFR Yugoslavia in 1979, bringing ten-year-old Robert and his two siblings along. Once in Croatia, just like in West Germany prior, his father Đuro signed up his adolescent son to the youth setup of Dinamo Zagreb and continued monitoring his progress closely.
Club career Dinamo Zagreb After moving up the youth ranks for years, Prosinečki started getting occasional first team appearances during the 1986–87 league season under head coach Miroslav Blažević. On his league debut versus Željezničar on 2 November 1986, the seventeen-year-old managed to score in a 2–1 home win. By the end of the season, he recorded one more league appearance: playing the second half versus Sloboda Tuzla on 12 April 1987, a goalless home draw.
Wanting to secure his son's financial future, Prosinečki's father Đuro started pushing within the club hierarchy for a professional contract to be given to his eighteen-year-old son. However, coach Miroslav Blažević sent him away, once famously claiming while doing a guest spot on a local radio phone-in sports show that he would "eat his coaching diploma if Prosinečki ever became a proper football player".
Red Star Belgrade In the summer of 1987, Đuro Prosinečki took 18-year-old Robert over to Belgrade and got the professional contract they were after. Dragan Džajić, Red Star's then technical director, remembers how the transfer got initiated:
Despite evident quality and obvious technical ability, in order to further assess an unproven prospect who hadn't been on their radar, Red Star management reportedly also inquired about Prosinečki—as well as about the player-management relations and overall atmosphere within Dinamo—with their own defender Milivoj Bračun who had spent years at Dinamo before moving to Belgrade.
Within weeks, in late June 1987, as the league season ended and the summer transfer window opened, Prosinečki and his father went back to Belgrade where he took part in a few more training sessions with the Red Star Belgrade squad that was temporarily missing some of its marquee players such as Dragan Stojković, Boro Cvetković and newly-signed Refik Šabanadžović, who were in Zagreb competing at 1987 Universiade with the Yugoslavia national team. Furthermore, Prosinečki played a friendly match versus the recently promoted Second League side FK Rad. Satisfied again with his skills, technical director Džajić wanted to sign the professional contract right away, however, Prosinečki and his father wanted to go back to Zagreb one more time, ostensibly to get more of their personal belongings before coming back to sign. Afraid that young Prosinečki might try to leverage the accolades from his Belgrade tryouts in order to improve his standing back in Dinamo and possibly stay in Zagreb, Džajić insisted on contract being signed immediately, but eventually relented by taking Prosinečki's father's word that they will indeed come back to Belgrade and sign with Red Star.
After signing, young Prosinečki's initial accommodation—a room in Hotel Srbija—was paid for by the club.
1987-88 season: immediate breakthrough, World Youth champion Immediately upon joining his new club, Prosinečki started. Playing under head coach Vasović, the he secured a regular spot in Red Star's midfield alongside Dragan Stojković, Žarko Đurović and Goran Milojević just a few weeks into the 1987–88 league season, opening his Red Star scoring account in the process during only his second match for the club—a 7–1 home rout of Priština on 9 August 1987. Several weeks later on 6 September 1987 at the Večiti derbi against cross-town rival FK Partizan in front of 55,000 spectators at Stadion JNA, Prosinečki set up teammate Bora Cvetković with a long-distance through pass that the forward put away for a 1–3 lead early into the second half, putting the out of Partizan's reach.
In October 1987, he was part of the Yugoslav youth squad which won the World Youth Championship in Chile, with Prosinečki winning the Golden Ball award as the tournament's best player. Playing in Chile meant that he was away from the club for the entire month of October, and he was already held in such high regard at Red Star, that the club brass attempted to bring him back from South America after the tournament's group stages, so that he could play in their 1987–88 UEFA Cup second round tie versus Club Brugge. The Yugoslav team players protested to FIFA, and João Havelange, the organisation's chairman at the time, intervened to keep Prosinečki in Chile.
After Prosinečki's return from Chile to rejoin Red Star, the club's executive board decided to provide him with a two-bedroom apartment where the player moved to from his initial hotel accommodation.
During his four-year spell at the club, Prosinečki helped Red Star win three Yugoslav First League titles and one Yugoslav Cup, as well as participating in the club's greatest success in history by winning the 1991 European Cup.
Real Madrid Prosinečki joined Spanish giants Real Madrid during the summer of 1991 for a transfer fee of ₧ 450 million (€15 million). Led by club president Ramón Mendoza and head coach Radomir Antić, the club had huge expectations from their expensive and highly rated signing.Nuri Sahin: A new crystal player?;from MARCA, 2 September 2011 Real were coming off a difficult season during which they made two coaching changes before barely managing a UEFA Cup spot by finishing third in La Liga under Antić, their third head coach that season.
However, pretty much immediately, 22-year-old Prosinečki got sidelined with a string of muscular injuries. Administered by team doctors, he underwent a series of tests as well as a strict dietary regime in addition to getting forced into changing many lifestyle-related habits. Still, the first season turned out to be a complete write-off: he appeared in only three league matches with a notable shining moment — scoring a free-kick goal versus Barcelona in El Clásico on 19 October 1991.
Although injury-riddled as well, Prosinečki's second season at Real did provide a hint of a breakthrough with 29 league appearances and three goals, however, it was still far off the expectations indicated by his reputation and price tag.
His best season at Real, 1993–94, would incidentally turn out to be his last with the club, with six league goals.
Loan to Oviedo During the 1994 summer transfer window, after three indifferent seasons in Madrid, Real brass decided that Prosinečki's physical fragility and injuries were too much to deal with, offloading the twenty-five-year-old to Real Oviedo on a loan deal. Reuniting with Radomir Antić—the same head coach who had brought him to Real three years earlier—Prosinečki ended up playing his best season yet in Spain, even winning a league match against his former club Real Madrid in May 1995. He stood out for his good performances as an organizer, he recovered his best level and he felt more satisfied with his physical and psychological state. He also started being a regular in the Croatia national team. In his statements to the press reflected "I'm enjoying my football" and reaffirmed his intention to leave Real Madrid without fulfilling the fifth year of contract he had left.
Barcelona The summer 1995 arrival of Radomir Antić to Atlético Madrid motivated Atlético to reach an agreement with Real Madrid, whom Prosinečki was still contracted to. However, Barcelona stepped in by presenting Zoran Vekić, the Croatian's agent, with a better offer. While the interest of the Colchoneros was made public, the other bid was not leaked to the press. At the end, Prosinečki became a free agent, he rejected Atlético and signed on 20 July 1995 to Barcelona with a contract of €3 million for three seasons, plus two optional. Ramón Mendoza did not want his eternal rival to take the midfielder free, but the bad economic situation of Real Madrid precipitated his departure.
In Barcelona, he suffered muscle injuries again that made him miss the first part of the season. By the time he recovered, coach Johan Cruyff did not trust him and relegated him to the substitution bench, so he only played 19 games in the 1995–96 season.
The following season, 1996–97, new manager Bobby Robson reduced Prosinečki to friendly matches. After this, Prosinečki wanted to leave. On 14 December 1996, he was sold to Sevilla for €1.67 million.
Sevilla Prosinečki spent the rest of the 1996-97 season in Sevilla and was always a first choice pick for the team.
Croatia Zagreb In 1997, he returned home to play for Croatia Zagreb (Dinamo's name at the time) for a fee of €2.5 million. His arrival was very well received by the fans and meant the return of the midfielder to the club where he began his professional career.
During his first season, he won the double with the team and reached the UEFA Cup third round, where Prosinečki's performances where a key factor to victory against MTK Hungária and Grasshopper.
The next two seasons saw Prosinečki lead, as captain, one of the best generations of Dinamo Zagreb, winning the league twice and playing in the UEFA Champions League in consecutive seasons. In their European campaign, Dinamo reached their best result in the competition. Prosinečki is remembered by the fans most notably for his performances against Celtic and Manchester United.
Hrvatski Dragovoljac and Standard Liège On 14 July 2000, Prosinečki signed to Hrvatski Dragovoljac as a free agent. The club president Stjepan Spajić said Prosinečki would sign a two-year contract with a clause that he could leave if a foreign club would make an offer to him.