Zvonimir Soldo
Zvonimir Soldo ( born November 2, 1967 in Zagreb, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia) is a Croatian football coach and former football player. Most recently, he was head coach of the 1st FC Cologne.
Career
Player
Association
Soldo began as a teenager in the neighborhood club NK Zagreb with the football game. In 1988 he moved to the Croatian first division club Dinamo Zagreb, but in which he could not prevail. After two years he left Dinamo and came across the stations NK Zadar and Inter Zaprešić 1994 back to Dinamo Zagreb, which is now Croatia Zagreb was where him this time but made a breakthrough. During his time in Croatia Soldo was also the first time appointed to the Croatian national football team.
In 1996, Soldo to VfB Stuttgart, for the ten years he was active. With the VfB Stuttgart, he won the DFB-Pokal in 1997 and in 1998 reached the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup, the 0-1 lost his team against Chelsea. For the season 2006/ 07 Soldo received a new contract and then ended his career.
National
Zvonimir Soldo played his first game for the Croatian national team on 20 April 1994 in the 1:4 defeat against Slovakia. With this he was able to qualify for the 1995 European Football Championship in 1996, for which he was also nominated in 1996. In the European Football Championship in 1996 the Croats managed the leap into the quarter- finals, where, however, failed due to the eventual tournament winners Germany (1:2). Zvonimir Soldo came in that tournament only three inserts.
Only a year later succeeded by relegation, qualifying for the World Cup 1998. A contribution to the qualification has also provided Soldo with seven inserts. Also for this tournament Zvonimir Soldo was nominated and so came at the soccer World Cup 1998 to six inserts. He was able to reach third place in the World Cup surprise with Checkered.
Again, a year later, the qualification for Euro 2000 has been missed. Soldo could do nothing to change the miss qualifying despite eight inserts. However, two years later, he added, with five appearances for the qualification of Croatia in the World Cup 2002. There, however, the Croats retired after the group phase, Soldo was used in two games.
Croatia's second group game at the World Cup 2002 on June 8, 2002 against Italy, which was surprisingly won 2-1, was Soldos last international match. In eight years as a national player, he came to 61 inserts, where he scored three goals.
Coach
In July 2007, Soldo youth coach at Dinamo Zagreb. In January 2008, he took over as the head coach of the first team of Dinamo, with which he also won in April, with six games left in the season, the championship in the Croatian League and the Croatian Cup. After these successes he announced his resignation. On 12 June 2009 Soldo became head coach of the 1st FC Cologne and thus inherited Christoph Daum. Soldo signed a two-year contract in Cologne and reached in the 2009/10 season with the club number 13 of the German Bundesliga. He operated this season a much defensively oriented style of play, which was based on consistently to keep the opponent from his own penalty area. This allowed his team frequently, especially abroad, surprisingly earn points. There was criticism that this tactic often led to event and opportunity poor games which are very attractive for the stadium and television audience. After a weak start to the season 2010/11 he was on 24 October 2010, when the club on the ninth Round was number 17 of the table, released early.
Play
Soldo was mainly known to eliminate the opposing playmaker in the defensive midfield. So he could take from the game in the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup Zinedine Zidane, so that the later world champion France was on the brink of defeat. Also, the playmaker of the Bundesliga did against Soldo often difficult. Sebastian Deisler writes in his biography, for example, that Soldo was his toughest opponent. Offensive he rarely sat accents, although he was quite technically adept for a tall player.
Achievements
Greatest success with the Croatian national team was the third place in the Football World Cup 1998 in France.