Darko Pančev
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name |
Darko Pančev Дарко Панчев | ||
Date of birth | 7 September 1965 | ||
Place of birth | Skopje, SR Macedonia, SFR Yugoslavia | ||
Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||
Position(s) | Forward | ||
Youth career | |||
1976–1983 | Vardar | ||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
1982–1988 | Vardar | 151 | (84) |
1988–1992 | Red Star Belgrade | 92 | (84) |
1992–1995 | Inter Milan | 19 | (3) |
1994-1995 | → VfB Leipzig (loan) | 10 | (2) |
1995–1996 | Fortuna Düsseldorf | 14 | (2) |
1996–1997 | FC Sion | 5 | (0) |
Total | 396 | (255) | |
International career | |||
1984–1991 | Yugoslavia | 27 | (17) |
1993–1995 | Macedonia | 6 | (1) |
*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
Darko Pančev (Macedonian: Дарко Панчев, Macedonian pronunciation: [ˈdarkɔ ˈpantʃɛf]; born 7 September 1965) is a Macedonian former professional footballer who played as a forward. He most notably played for FK Vardar and Red Star Belgrade.
He was part of the
Club career
Vardar Skopje
His playing career started in 1982 at Vardar Skopje where he quickly developed into one of the most feared strikers in the Yugoslav League, becoming league top scorer in the 1983–84 season. The skill and seeming ease of his goal scoring exploits in Skopje made him a target for bigger clubs.
Red Star Belgrade
During summer 1988, Pančev was snapped up by Red Star Belgrade, which beat cross-town rivals FK Partizan to the twenty-two-year-old's signature. Another talented youngster, 21-year-old Dejan Savićević, also arrived to the club during the same transfer window, but both promptly got sent to serve the mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) stint that kept them off the pitch for the entire league season.
Pančev debuted for his new club in 1989 and played three full seasons for crveno-beli, scoring an incredible 84 goals from 91 league appearances, and winning the European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup in 1991.
Due to his phenomenal strike rate, during the early 1990s, he was widely recognized as one of the best strikers in the world. Displaying great goalscoring instincts and predatory skills, he got nicknamed Kobra by the Serbian sports media. Red Star fans remember him as the player who scored the winning penalty in the
Pančev was the highest scorer in top-division European football in the 1990–91 season with 34 goals, and should have won the
On 4 March 1992, Pančev scored two goals for Red Star to defeat Panathinaikos 2–0 at the Olympic Stadium in Athens in a European Cup match. The spotlight was on him because upon completing the forms to gain entry in Greece, he wrote his nationality as Macedonian. This made great havoc among the Greeks, he was detained several hours before being allowed to cross the border. In an interview after the duel he would say, "There is a saying that luck follows the brave. I was happy to score two goals before 80,000 spectators in Athens and Red Star to win 2–0. After that, the earth could open up and I did not mind."[1][2][3]
Inter Milan
Over the summer 1992 off-season, soon to be twenty-seven-year-old Pančev signed for
1992–93 season
Joining a squad that in addition to new head coach Osvaldo Bagnoli also featured plenty of new faces in the player personnel, the conventional wisdom was that such circumstances would work in Pančev's favour in terms of fitting in. His competitors for spots upfront were all new arrivals as well: Uruguayan Rubén Sosa who came from Lazio, the Italian 1990 World Cup hero Salvatore Schillaci joining from Juventus, and, depending on formation, even Russian attacking midfielder Igor Shalimov who was acquired from Foggia.
However, in contrast to club president Pellegrini, head coach Bagnoli wasn't as taken with Pančev's playing style and already during pre-season reproached the player for lack of movement. The highly-touted forward made his Inter debut during late August 1992 in
The league season started several days later away at Udinese with Pančev getting a start alongside Schillaci before getting subbed off in the 81st minute for Davide Fontolan with the score tied at 1–1; by the end, Udinese managed to score once more for a 2–1 win. The following week, at home versus Cagliari, he got the start again next to Schillaci before again being subbed off for Fontolan, this time in the 79th minute with Inter leading 2–1. For the week 3 fixture away at Napoli, Pančev found himself out of the matchday squad and the same scenario repeated for the subsequent five league matches as head coach Bagnoli completely removed him from consideration for matchday squads, thereby handing Rubén Sosa the other forward spot, alongside automatic choice Schillaci.
After almost two months without competitive football, Pančev got reinstated courtesy of an injury suffered by Bagnoli's preferred centre forward Schillaci, with the head coach giving the Macedonian a full ninety minute performance in a 0–0 home draw versus
It was apparent the Macedonian was experiencing major problems adapting to stringent Italian league defences and his goal output suddenly became nonexistent. Simultaneously, his relationship with Bagnoli took a turn for the worse, as the two started butting heads, often publicly. Pančev apparently even resorted to faking an illness in order to avoid sitting on the bench.
He'd wait until late January 1993 to net his first league goal, which came at home versus Udinese. Parallel to Pančev's struggles, Inter posted a decent league season behind Sosa's goalscoring exploits, and with no distraction of European football finished league runners-up to cross-town rival
1993–94 season
Pančev remained part of the Inter squad for the 1993–94 season, although he was completely out of the first-team picture as his relationship with Bagnoli deteriorated to a point of no repair. Furthermore, the arrival of £12 million signing Dennis Bergkamp from Ajax relegated the Macedonian even further down the pecking order. He did not get any league appearances during the first half of the season nor did he get any action in the UEFA Cup.
In January 1994, during the league winter break, Pančev got loaned out to German team
Loan to Leipzig
Arriving to a club fighting for its life near the bottom of the table, Pančev scored two goals in ten matches for Leipzig during Bundesliga spring half-season.[8] The team still got relegated.
Return to Inter
Pančev returned to San Siro following a six-month loan hoping to make the most of his second chance. Playing under new head coach
Due to his less than stellar displays in Serie A, Pančev has often been referred to as bidone by Inter fans, a derisive term in Italian meaning "trashcan", used colloquially for high-profile flops in the league.
Late career
He ended his playing career with Swiss team Sion in 1997.
After retiring from playing, Pančev often talked at length about his failed stint at Inter Milan. In 2002, he addressed the criticism he often received in Italy about his lack of movement off the ball:
There are strikers who don’t run and there are strikers who run. I was one of those strikers with a natural talent for scoring, and I ran only when I was within 30 metres of goal. Unfortunately Inter didn’t want to accept that style of play.[10]
He also complained about supposed less-than-friendly attitudes in the Nerazzurri dressing room towards certain foreigners, and in this regard singled out Inter's Italian stalwarts
International career
Pančev played in the
Pančev later played in the Macedonian national team's first ever official match, on 13 October 1993, against Slovenia. His final international was a June 1995 European Championship qualification match against Belgium.[14]
In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Macedonia by the Football Federation of the Republic of Macedonia as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.[15]
After retirement
After retiring from playing, Pančev worked with the Football Federation of Macedonia. In July 2006, Pančev was named the sporting director of Vardar.
He owns a cafe called Devetka (Number Nine) in Skopje.[16]
Personal life
Pančev is married to singer Maja Grozdanovska-Pančeva. They have two daughters: Nadica and Marija.
Career statistics
Club
Club | Season | Yugoslav League | Yugoslav Cup | Europe | Total | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
Vardar Skopje | 1982–83 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
1983–84 | 31 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 19 | |
1984–85 | 31 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 20 | |
1985–86
|
26 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 29 | 14 | |
1986–87 | 29 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 17 | |
1987–88 | 30 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 32 | 23 | |
Red Star Belgrade | 1989–90 | 32 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 35 | 26 |
1990–91 | 32 | 34 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 43 | 40 | |
1991–92 | 28 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 6 | 37 | 31 | |
Total | 243 | 168 | 2 | 1 | 26 | 14 | 271 | 193 |
Honours
Red Star Belgrade
- Yugoslav First League: 1989–90, 1990–91, 1991–92
- Yugoslav Cup: 1989–90
- European Cup: 1990–91
- Intercontinental Cup: 1991
Inter Milan
- UEFA Cup: 1993–94
Individual
- Ballon d'Or: Runner-up 1991
- Federal League top scorers: 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992
- European Golden Shoe: 1991
- UEFA Jubilee Awards – Greatest Macedonians Footballer of the last 50 Years (Golden Player): 2003
References
- ^ "Пред точно две децении: Македонецот Дарко Панчев ги покори Атина и Панатинаикос" (in Macedonian). ekipa.mk. 4 March 2012. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ "1991/92 European Champions Clubs' Cup Panathinaikos 0:2 Crvena Zvezda". UEFA.com. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ "Darko Pančev MАCEDONIA 2-0 Panathinaikos Greece". YouTube. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ "Pancev: "la Coppa dei campioni mi interessa, ma con l'Inter"" (in Italian). Corriere Della Sera. 23 May 1992. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ a b "Bidoni calcio: Darko Pancev, da cobra a ramarro dell'Inter" (in German). Ecco dello Sport. 11 May 2010. Archived from the original on 5 September 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ Vitali, Cristian (2010). Calciobidoni - Non comprate quello straniero (in Italian). Piano B Edizioni.
- Nova S. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
- RSSSF.com. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
- ^ "Aston Villa vs Inter Milan - UEFA Cup 1994/95 - Oh, It Must Be!". YouTube. 29 September 1994. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
- ^ a b "Wounded cobra's venom". The Times. 21 October 2002.
- RSSSF.com. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
- ^ "Pancev también renuncia a la Eurocopa". Mundo Deportivo (in Spanish). 25 May 1992. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "Yugoslav athletes banned". The New York Times. 1 June 1992. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ "Player Database". eu-football.info. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
- ^ [1] Archived 17 March 2005 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Macedonian pride in Pancev". UEFA.com. 1 February 2011. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
External links
- Darko Pančev at WorldFootball.net
- Darko Pančev at National-Football-Teams.com
- Darko Pančev at MacedonianFootball (in English)
- Darko Pančev – UEFA competition record (archive) (Archived 3 November 2012 at archive.today)
- Darko Pančev at Reprezentacija.rs(in Serbian)
- Darko Pancev: “Cobra” in patria, “Ramarro” in Italia: Bagnoli insegna (in Italian)