Zlatko Kranjčar

Club

Kranjčar started to play for Dinamo Zagreb at the age of 10 in 1966 and stayed at the club until 1983. He debuted for the first team on 3 March 1974, aged 17, in a match against Hajduk Split. He played as a striker and quickly became one of the most popular players of the club. He appeared in a total of 556 matches for Dinamo, including friendlies, and scored a total of 256 goals, of which 98 were in the Yugoslav First League. With Dinamo, Kranjčar won the 1981–82 Yugoslav First League, the first one for the club in 24 years, and two Yugoslav Cups in 1980 and 1983. He then transferred to Austrian club Rapid Wien for which he played until 1990. With the club he won the Austrian Championship twice and even made it to the Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1985. The last club in his playing career was VSE St. Pölten for which he played for two months in late 1990.

International

Kranjčar made his debut for Yugoslavia in a January 1977 friendly match away against Colombia, coming on as a 60th-minute substitute for Vladimir Petrović, and earned a total of 11 caps, scoring 3 goals. His final international was a November 1983 friendly against France. He was also capped twice and scored one goal for the Croatia national team and is notable as the first team captain of the Croatian team in their first international match against the United States on 17 October 1990 in Zagreb. Both games were unofficial however, since Croatia was still part of Yugoslavia at the time.

Early years

Kranjčar started his coaching career in 1991 as an advisor at Austria Klagenfurt. From 1992 until 1994 he coached Croatian club Segesta and in 1994 he transferred to Croatia Zagreb, where he won the Croatian Championship and Cup in his first season. In 1996 he returned to Austria to coach FC Linz. A year later he was back in Croatia where he coached the clubs Slaven Belupo, Segesta (again) and Samobor. In 1998 he came back to Croatia Zagreb and led the club to another win in both the Croatian Championship and Cup as well as to an appearance in the UEFA Champions League. In 1999 he started to coach Egyptian club Al-Masry and in 2000 he went on to coach Slovenian club NK Mura, where he also stayed for one season. In 2002, he became the Croatian championship winner with NK Zagreb.

Croatia

After Croatia failed to advance through the group stage at the UEFA Euro 2004, Kranjčar was chosen to replace Otto Barić as the national team's coach for the next two years. He went on to lead Croatia in a total of 25 international matches between August 2004 and June 2006. Under his guidance, the team finished top of their group in the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying, staying undefeated by recording seven wins and three draws in their ten qualifying matches. At the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals, however, they failed to reach the knock-out stages after losing once and drawing twice in their three group matches. Due to this, the Croatian Football Federation decided not…

Club

International

International goals

Scores and results list Yugoslavia's and Croatia's goal tally first.

Kranjčar was married in 1983 and had a son, Niko, who is also a professional footballer. He was fluent in German. On 1 March 2021, Kranjčar died at the age of 64 after a short but severe illness. His health deteriorated in Zadar, where he ended up in hospital. He was urgently transferred to Zagreb but doctors were unable to save his life.