Slaven Bilic is no ordinary Croatian coach

Croatian National Team Coach Slaven Bilic may seem like the regular "run of the mill" coach, but he is definitely much more than that. In addition to being coach, he was also an important member of the early Croatian National Team between 1994 and 1998 and was part of the 1998 squad that won third place at the World Cup.

Despite the fact that Bilic was a defender and therefore not a big goal scorer when he played for the national team, he may be considered one of the best coaches Croatia has had since their Golden Age of the mid 90's. On April 30th, Bilic agreed to extend his contract with the Croatian Soccer Federation which will make him coach up to the days of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. Bilic's new contract is worth 1.2 million Kuna ($257,300) a year, a small sum in comparison to other coaches.

Bilic was born on September 11, 1968 and started playing professionally at a very young age at his hometown club, Hajduk Split, in the Yugoslav League at only 9 years old where he spent nine season. In 1993, he moved to Germany's Bundesliga to play for Karlsruher SC where he impressed many fans and players. He was then bought by English Premier League club West Ham United in January 1996. Due to his good form as an EPL player, the then coach of the Croatian National Team selected him for the Croatian National Team for Euro 96 held in England. This gave Bilic a lot of exposure as Croatia made it to the quarterfinals where they were beaten by eventual winners Germany. Despite this, Bilic's performance impressed Everton's coach Joe Royle who attempted to broker a deal with West Ham in March 1997, but Bilic claimed that he had a debt of loyalty to West Ham that saw him stay with the club until the end of the season to ensure they were not relegated. He moved on to Everton in August 1997. However, his season at Everton was a bad one because of several yellow cards that forced him out of matches due to suspension. Despite this, he was still called to be a part of the 1998 World Cup squad for Croatia, who were considered to be the underdogs of the tournament, but made it to the semifinals where they faced host team France and lost forcing them into the third place game which they won.

In July 1999, Everton allowed Bilic to play for another club but he was unwanted in the Premier League. Therefore, he decided to play in Croatia again so he returned to Hajduk Split where he remained until retirement.

Before coaching the national team, Bilic coached Croatia's Under 21 team where he met current Senior national team players such as Eduardo da Silva. During the qualification rounds for the 2006 U-21 European Championship, the team went through the group stage but lost in a playoff to rival Serbia and Montenegro.

He was appointed head coach of the senior national team on July 25, 2006, succeeding Zlatko Kranjcar (who faced quite a bit of controversy from Croatian fans when he chose his son over Eduardo da Silva to play in the 2006 World Cup). Bilic's assistants included Aljosa Asanovic (his assistant in the U21 team) and Robert Prosinečki (a former teammate from 1998). The team's first competetive match under Bilić was a 0-0 draw in Moscow against Russia, their first match in Euro 2008 Qualifying. Despite this slow start, he led Croatia to a very successful qualifying campaign, in a group consisting of England, Russia, Israel, Macedonia, Estonia and Andorra. They qualified first in Group E, along with Russia. The campaign recorded some impressive results, including two wins over heavy group favorites England (who finished third in the group), 2-0 in Zagreb and 3-2 in London and a 7-0 domination of a weak Andorra side. Croatia also posted a 4-3 nail biter in Israel in which da Silva scored 3 of the 4 goals.

The above is not why I consider him "no ordinary Croatian coach." Neither is it because he's fluent in three languages (German, Italian, and English) nor is it because of his law degree or that he plays guitar in a rock band called Rawbau and recently wrote the official Euro 2008 anthem for the national team--a song called Vatreno Ludilo (Fiery Madness)--named after the nickname for the team ("Vatreni" or fiery ones). There is only one thing that sets him apart from other past Croatian coaches, players--current and past, and fans, and that is that he has class. Sadly, many, especially the fans, have acted absolutely disgustingly towards their win against England--cursing the English national team out and other disgusting behavior. This has gone to the point that many remember Croatian fans for their behavior. As a matter of fact, Croatia was almost disqualified in 2006 World Cup qualifying due to fan behavior. I can understand showing a little bit of patriotism when watching a national team match but some fans go way too far (I will go into this further in a future post).

This class from Bilic is shown in the video below when he was interviewed by English media regarding Croatia's win against England:



Thank you, Mr. Bilic! Your are the coach Croatia needs right now!

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