Dušan Bajević

Dušan Bajević

Personal information
Full name	Dušan Bajević
Position(s)	Manager (former Striker)
Team information
Current team	none
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 2007

File:Bajevic dusan.jpg Dušan Bajević (Serbian: Душан Бајевић, Greek: Ντούσαν Μπάγεβιτς, Doúsan Báyevits; born 10 December 1948, in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia) is a Bosnian Serb football manager and former football player.

Playing

He began his career with Velež Mostar. He played almost 400 games for Velez where he scored 170 goals. He stayed in Velez from 1967-1975 before going to AEK Athens where he won the Greek championship twice. He is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the AEK Athens FC team. He was a successful player, loved by AEK's fans. He joined the team in 1978 along with other great players of the era and won two championships and one cup title. He was also the league's top scorer during the season 1980-1981.

He came back to Velež in 1981 and stayed to 1983 before retiring. During his career he was together with Slobodan Santrač the best goalscorer in the Yugoslav league season 1969/70. He also played for Yugoslavia in the 1974 FIFA World Cup where he scored a hat-trick against Zaire. He scored 29 times in 37 games Yugoslavia between 1970-1977.

Managerial career

Velež Mostar

After ending his football career in 1983 he took over as coach for Velež. He led the team to win the Kup Marsala Tita in 1986 by defeating Dinamo Zagreb 3-1 in the final. The next season Velež finished the league in second spot and Bajević went to Greece to coach AEK Athens.

AEK Athens

He took over AEK's managerial position in 1988. In his first year, he managed to lead the team to an unexpected championship title after ten years, since the rivals Olympiacos and Panathinaikos had teams that were considered superior. He also won three consecutive leagues (1992,1993,1994).

Olympiacos

In 1996, he moved to Olympiacos, bringing great fan hostility upon himself from AEK supporters. While he was Olympiacos' manager, Olympiacos won their first championship in 1997 after ten years, and became champions for three consecutive times. In 1999, Olympiacos won the Double and, for the first time in their history, reached the UEFA Champions League quarter finals.

PAOK

Bajevic decided to move to Thessaloniki and he had a successful stay at PAOK FC considering the team's financial problems, during which the club won the Greek Cup in 2001 (after a near-thirty year wait).

AEK, again

Fans were divided among those who accepted him and those who hated him. The latter part of the fans made his life a living hell. On a match day against Iraklis, he decided he had enough and with no prior warning left the bench and resigned while the game was still in first half. As the AEK coach, in the 2002/2003 UEFA Champions League AEK became the first and only team to collect six ties out of six games in the group phase and ended up at third position. A notable match was the 2-2 draw against Real Madrid in Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

Olympiacos, again

In 2004, he returned to Olympiacos, where he won the double again. Also, his team got very close to the second round of the Champions League by collecting ten points, however the defeat against Liverpool FC with 3-1 in the last game stopped them not making it to the next round. Olympiacos went as far as the fourth round of the UEFA Cup. Despite these good results, he quit, mainly due to the pressure from the fans who were not satisfied with the team's way of playing.

Red Star Belgrade

On May 25, 2006 Bajević became the coach of the former European Cup champion Red Star Belgrade. He was brought in by club president Dragan Stojković as replacement to recently departed Walter Zenga, with the appoinment generally welcomed by club's fans due to Bajević's glowing reputation as an experienced coach with plenty of success from the Greek league.

The expectations were also plentiful as Red Star, Serbia-Montenegro league champion, was getting ready to start Champions League qualifying. After progressing from the initial stage, they were drawn against powerhouse AC Milan in the final qualifying round, putting up decent resistance en route to 1-3 aggregate loss. Competition in UEFA Cup also ended quickly.

In contrast to European failures, the domestic league form was satisfactory with Bajević leading the team to top of the league with 14 points in spare at the winter break. However, the second part of the season began with an inexplicable dip in form.

On February 27, 2007 Bajević's car got destroyed by angry fans, after losing the league derby match to FK Partizan for the first time in 11 years.

The end of Bajević's stint with Red Star came in shocking fashion on March 10, 2007 during a league match versus FK Vojvodina. With Red Star down 0-2, Bajević walked out on the team in the middle of the game, leaving the pitch in 70th minute. The match finished 0-3, shrinking the Red Star's lead at the top to only 6 points.