• Miroslav Blazevic, the great football coach who led Croatia to third place.
• He died on Wednesday at the age of 87.
• Zlatko Dalic expressed his sorrow over the loss of his “football father”.

Miroslav Blazevic, the great football coach who led Croatia to third place in the 1998 World Cup, died on Wednesday, according to the national football association. He was 87.

“Today, the entire football family lost ‘the coach of all coaches,'” the federation posted on social media.

After a protracted battle with cancer, Blazevic passed away in the capital Zagreb, prompting an outpouring of sympathy.

Zlatko Dalic, the head coach of Croatia’s national team, paid tribute, expressing his sorrow over the loss of his “football father, a true inspiration for everything I achieved in my coaching career.”

Citing Blazevic by his well-known moniker, “Ciro,” Dalic said in a statement that Blazevic was “unique — an unrivalled motivator and speaker… a man with great flair and even bigger soul and that’s why we all liked and admired him.

Blazevic, who was born on February 10th, 1935, began his playing career in the nearby Bosnian town of Travnik.

He started coaching in Switzerland in the early 1960s and relocated to Croatia, then a part of the former Yugoslavia, in 1979.

He coached Rijeka in Croatia before moving on to coach Dinamo Zagreb, where he helped the team win its first Yugoslav championship in 24 years.

Blazevic’s popularity in his native country, where he was well-known for sporting stylish white scarves in public, increased when he won the title.

In 2021, Blazevic informed the local media that Dinamo’s victory in 1982 was the pinnacle of his managerial career.

Blazevic led the national team from 1994 to 2000 and amassed a number of notable victories, including a third-place finish at the 1998 World Cup in France.

After years of struggle during Croatia’s 1991–1995 independence war amid the horrific breakup of Yugoslavia, the victory gave the exhausted nation a much-needed boost.

Blazevic gained notoriety during the 1998 World Cup for donning a French gendarme’s cap during matches as a show of support for a security guard who had been gravely injured by German football hooligans.

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