Croatian football player and manager (1952?2013)
Josip Ku?e
(13 November 1952 ? 16 June 2013) was a Croatian
football
manager and footballer. He was a player and later a manager of
Dinamo Zagreb
where he played for 10 years, making a total of 384 appearances and scoring 14 goals.
Playing career
[
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]
He was a professional football player with
Dinamo Zagreb
, winning 11 Yugoslavian U-21 caps. He played a minor role among the great players who still have their huge amount of respect today. During his playing years with Dinamo as a defender from 1971 to 1981 he played in 384 games scoring 14 goals. Ku?e scored only 1 goal in 1975/1976 season. During his career he played alongside Balkan footballing greats such as
Zlatko Kranj?ar
,
Snje?ko Cerin
,
Sre?ko Bogdan
,
Velimir Zajec
,
Ivica Senzen
,
Marko Mlinari?
,
Ismet Had?i?
,
Boro Cvetkovi?
and
Stjepan Deveri?
.
Managerial career
[
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]
After his playing career finished he started as coach of
Sydney Croatia
(1982?84) then he coached clubs such as BSK Slavonski Brod (1985?86), Dinamo Zagreb youth (1986?88),
Borac Banja Luka
(1988?89) before he became Dinamo Zagreb's coach in (1989?91). In 1991, he started coaching in Germany with
FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt
(1991?92) and later accepted the job from league-competition
FSV Mainz 05
, and stayed there until 1994. From 1995 to 1998, he coached Japanese side
Gamba Osaka
. Ku?e came back to
Croatia
to coach
NK Zagreb
(1998?99) and had a short stint with
FC Chemnitz
in 2000 and proceeded to coach Gamba Osaka again from 2000 to 2002. He then went to manage
Inter Zapre?i?
from 2003 to 2004 and in 2005 he took over coaching of
Dinamo Zagreb
again, winning the league title in his first year as coach.
Dinamo Zagreb coach
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]
He took over the team after they suffered a poor year, finishing down in seventh place. With some new players, he enjoyed early success in the next championship (2005/2006) with 18-2-2 61:11 record in first part of the league, and the final record, after playoffs, was 24-4-4 78:21. After the first ten games, Dinamo's goal-difference was 32:3, which gave them the highest goal-difference for any professional club in
Europe
. During this time Dinamo were accredited with playing attractive football.
In the new season, 2006?07, some high-class players arrived, and Dinamo, beat French side
Auxerre
2?1 during a pre-season friendly. Gameplay went worse in the new season, for the key defense midfielders could not give their best due to injuries, but still tremendous effort was made in second leg of Champions league qualifying round against
Arsenal
in
London
despite being 3-0 down from the first leg in
Zagreb
. Playing with a 5-3-2 formation, a much improved Dinamo side from the first leg, held a 1?0 lead until late into the game before Arsenal managed to turn it around with ten minutes remaining and eventually came away with a 2?1 victory. Despite the defeat Dinamo were praised, along with Kuze, for an impressive performance despite some injury concerns,
Mathias Chago
,
Davor Vugrinec
and
Jens Nowotny
all missed the match due to injury.
Despite his success in getting Dinamo in a position to challenge for the Croatian league after several below-par years, his team's performance against Arsenal was deemed not good enough and he left the club in November 2006 with both Kuze and the club stating the agreement was made with mutual consent.
[1]
Rwanda national team
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In November 2007 Kuze was appointed manager of the
Rwanda
replacing
Michael Nees
who was sacked after failing to qualify for the 2008
African Cup of Nations
. His initial contract will run for three years.
[2]
JEF United Chiba
[
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In January 2008, Japan's
J1 League
side
JEF United Chiba
announced that they appointed Kuze as their head coach.
[3]
However, this reign lasted just four months.,
[4]
and he was replaced by
Alex Miller
.
Albania national team coach
[
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]
Ku?e entered in the history of
Albania
as the coach with the largest victory against
Cyprus
in 2009, 6?1 in a friendly. As of 27 March 2011 and after 18 months at the job, he has had four victories (including friendlies, with Cyprus and
Northern Ireland
), three losses, and five draws (of which an important one against
Denmark
in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers). He is still warmly remembered by the
Red and Black Fans
organization for deeply affiliating with the Albania national team.
[5]
Tianjin Teda
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Ku?e was appointed as the new manager of
Chinese Super League
side
Tianjin Teda
on 6 January 2012.
[6]
On 20 May, Ku?e waved money towards the referee after a Super League match which Tianjin Teda lost to
Liaoning Whowin
2-1 by a controversial penalty in the stoppage time.
[7]
On 22 May, he received a ban of 7 matches and was fined ¥38,000 by
CFA
for his act and his remarks on the press conference.
[8]
He was released by Tianjin Teda on 28 May.
[9]
Managerial statistics
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[10]
Team
|
From
|
To
|
Record
|
G
|
W
|
D
|
L
|
Win %
|
Gamba Osaka
|
1996
|
1997
|
62
|
31
|
0
|
31
|
0
50.00
|
JEF United Chiba
|
1 February 2008
|
7 May 2008
|
11
|
0
|
2
|
9
|
00
0.00
|
Albania
|
6 June 2009
|
15 November 2011
|
27
|
9
|
8
|
10
|
0
33.33
|
Total
|
100
|
40
|
10
|
50
|
0
40.00
|
Death
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On 16 June 2013, Ku?e died of
leukemia
in
Zagreb
, aged 60, after a several months' battle with the disease.
[11]
[12]
References
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External links
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]