Robert Prosinečki

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.

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: [In late May 1987], during one of our away trips to Zagreb, we stayed at Hotel Esplanade where I got approached by a man who introduced himself as Robert Prosinečki's uncle. He told me his nephew wasn't happy at Dinamo and asked me if we could arrange a tryout. I told them to come to Belgrade in a couple of days and they did. At the tryout I saw this kid do wonders with…

Prosinečki had 49 caps for Croatia and scored 10 goals for his country. He was also capped 15 times, scoring four goals, for Yugoslavia. In 1987, he was named the tournament's best player as Yugoslavia won the World Youth Championship in Chile along with fellow Croatians Zvonimir Boban, Robert Jarni, Davor Šuker and Igor Štimac. Prosinečki then played for Yugoslavia at the 1990 World Cup, and for Croatia at Euro 1996 and the 1998 and 2002 World Cups. It was at the 1998 World Cup that Prosinečki and the Croatian squad managed a historic third-place finish, with Prosinečki scoring two goals throughout the tournament, including one in Croatia's 2–1 victory over the Netherlands in the bronze-medal match; as a result, he is the only player in history to have scored World Cup finals goals for two different national teams. In 1990, Prosinečki scored one goal for Yugoslavia in a group match against the United Arab Emirates and eight years later, he added two goals for Croatia by scoring in a group match against Jamaica and in the third place match against the Netherlands. He played in a total of nine World Cup matches, three for Yugoslavia in 1990 and six for Croatia in 1998 and 2002.

Prosinečki, nicknamed Žuti (the Yellow One) throughout his career due to his blond hair, was considered one of the most creative and technically skilled footballers who emerged from Eastern Europe in the 1980s. His favourite position was that of a pure midfielder, although he often also played as a right winger or as an attacking midfielder, and delayed his relocation to the centre of the pitch in order to elaborate and organize the attacking plays of his teammates with his passing, as the number 10 role best utilized his excellent vision of the game. He used to retain possession due to his dribbling skills and would impose his pace on rivals with his passing and ability to exploit spaces. On a technical level, he stood out for his ability to pass short, dribble, and drive forward with the ball. He also had a strong shot that made him dangerous from set pieces.

His style was criticized at times by some Real Madrid fans, although he was often played out of position during his time in the Spanish capital. Vicente del Bosque, his last coach with the team, recovered him for the playmaker role and defined his performances in the following way:It cannot be denied that he is an individualist. But you also have to think that you need the partners. Many times the audience whistles at him because he keeps the ball, without thinking that maybe he does it because he has no other choice. Prosinečki has stated that out of the coaches he played for his favourite was Johan Cruyff. His…