Dušan Bajević

Dušan "Duško" Bajević (Душан Бајевић, ; Ντούσαν Μπάγεβιτς, Doúsan Báyevits; born 10 December 1948) is a Bosnian professional football manager and former player.

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Bosnian football managers of all time and has won more trophies than any other manager from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bajević spent the majority of his playing career at hometown club Velež Mostar for who he played almost 400 games and scored 184 goals, a club record.

He also played with AEK Athens where he won the Alpha Ethniki two times and the Greek Cup once.

Bajević scored 29 goals for Yugoslavia in 37 games.

He was a part of the Velež trio known as the "Mostar BMV" (Bajević, Marić and Vladić) during the 1960s and 1970s.

He was voted "best athlete of Yugoslavia" and the press of the time gave him the nickname "Prince of Neretva", after the name of the river that runs through the city of Mostar.

He started playing with the men's in 1966, scoring a total 144 goals in 277 league matches.

He became the top scorer of the league in 1969–70 season, alongside Slobodan Santrač with 20 goals.

Bajević made his debut for the Yugoslavia national team in an April 1970 friendly match against Austria, in which game he immediately scored a goal, and has earned a total of 37 caps, scoring 29 goals.

He represented the country at the 1974 FIFA World Cup.

He played in the 1974 FIFA World Cup, where he scored three goals against Zaire.

In the summer of 1977, the owner of AEK Athens, Loukas Barlos was convinced to acquire Bajević, despite the injury problems the player had been facing.

He made his debut with the yellow-black jersey on 18 December 1977 in AEK's 1–0 home win against Kastoria.

Alongside Thomas Mavros, he formed one of the greatest attacking duo in the club's history.

His final international was a May 1977 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Romania.

He scored his first goal on 8 January 1978 in a 1–1 away draw against PAOK.

With AEK he won 2 Greek Championships and 1 Greek Cup, including a domestic double in 1978, while he was the league's top scorer for the 1979–80 season with 25 goals.

In the new years eve of 1979, Bajević scored 4 goals against Panserraikos in a 5–0 home win.

Bajević returned to Velež in the summer of 1981 where he played until 1983, when he retired at the age of 34.

After ending his football career in 1983, Bajević took over the role as manager of Velež.

After retiring as a player, Bajević started working as a manager, managing to win the Yugoslav Cup with Velež in 1986.

He led the team to win the Yugoslav Cup 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 manage AEK Athens.

He enjoyed the most success in Greece, winning eight Greek league titles, four Greek Cups, one Greek League Cup and one Greek Super Cup with AEK, Olympiacos and PAOK between 1988 and 2005; he is the most successful manager in AEK's history.

Bajević started playing football in the infrastructure departments of the local Velež Mostar and developed into a leading figure of the team, becoming their captain.

He took over AEK's managing position in 1988.

During his first season in charge (1988–89), he guided the team to an unexpected championship after a ten-year drought, when he won it as a player.

The club also had several decent campaigns in Europe under his management, reaching the last 16 in the following competitions: the European Cup (1990); the UEFA Cup (1992); the Champions League (1993) and (1995); and the Cup Winners' Cup (1996).

He then went on to win three consecutive championships (1992, 1993, 1994), one Greek Super Cup (1989), one League Cup (1990), one Pre-Mediterranean Cup (1991) and one Greek Cup (1996).

In 1996, after eight successful seasons at AEK, Bajević moved to Olympiacos, bringing great hostility upon himself from the AEK supporters.

Under Bajević, Olympiacos won their first championship in 1997 after ten sterile years, finishing 12 points ahead of AEK Athens and 20 points ahead of Panathinaikos.

Also in 1997–98, Olympiacos participated for first time in the UEFA Champions League, finishing third in the group.

In 1998 they were champions again after an important away win against Panathinaikos (0–2), finishing three points ahead of Panathinaikos.

In 1999, Bajević led the team to a league-cup Double: in the league they ended 10 points ahead of AEK and 11 ahead of Panathinaikos; in the Cup, Olympiacos beat Panathinaikos 2–0.

In the Champions League, the team finished top of the group, qualifying to the quarterfinals for the first (and only) time in their history and losing to Juventus 1–2 in Turin and drawing 1–1 at the Olympic Stadium.

The fans had great expectations for the 1999–00 season with the additions of Giovanni and Zlatko Zahovič to the squad, but Bajević's team only achieved a 3rd place in the Champions League group stage.

The head coach was sacked on 11 November 1999, despite Olympiacos holding the top spot in the league at the time.

Bajević soon moved to Thessaloniki, where he had a decent spell at financially strapped PAOK.

During his stay at the club, he won the Greek Cup in 2001 (after a near-thirty year wait) beating Οlympiakos 2–4 in Athens in a game in which his team delivered very high quality football.