Nenad Pralija

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Nenad Pralija
Personal information
Date of birth (1970-12-11) 11 December 1970 (age 53)
Place of birth
SFR Yugoslavia
Height 1.81 m (5 ft 11+12 in)
Position(s) Midfielder
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1990–1993 RNK Split
1993–1996 Hajduk Split 70 (32)
1996–1998 Espanyol 42 (4)
1998–1999 Hajduk Split 16 (4)
1999–2000
Reggina
23 (0)
2000–2003 Maccabi Haifa 81 (21)
2003–2005 Hajduk Split 44 (3)
2005–2007
Trogir
17 (3)
Total 293 (67)
International career
1993 Croatia U21 1 (0)
1995–1997 Croatia 11 (1)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Nenad Pralija[pronunciation?] (born 11 December 1970) is a Croatian retired football midfielder, who most notably played for Hajduk Split and the Croatia national football team.

Club career

Pralija started his career at his hometown club

1995–96 season as the club's top scorer with 17 goals in 26 appearances. He instantly became Hajduk fans' favourite player and was awarded the Heart of Hajduk Award
two years in a row, in 1995 and 1996.

After three successful years at Hajduk, Pralija moved to

Reggina, before moving to the Israeli outfit Maccabi Haifa. At Maccabi Pralija had a very successful spell, playing alongside fellow Croat Đovani Roso and coached by Avram Grant. During this time he won two Israeli championships and played in the Champions League again, this time scoring against Bayer Leverkusen at BayArena
. He is still regarded as one of the best Maccabi players of the early 2000s.

After Maccabi, he returned to Hajduk again in 2003. At first he was a first-team regular and even captained the team for a while, but soon after

Druga HNL
but resigned soon afterwards.

International career

He debuted for Croatia on 11 June 1995 against Ukraine, coming on as a substitute for Aljoša Asanović.[2] He played a total of 11 games[3] for the national side (and scored a single goal in a friendly versus Czech Republic), but failed to leave a deeper mark during Miroslav Blažević's reign. He was quoted as saying that he was "born in a wrong era, since it was impossible to win a place on the team which had the likes of players such as Aljoša Asanović, Zvonimir Boban and Robert Prosinečki."[1] His last appearance for Croatia was on 12 June 1997 in the starting lineup of a friendly against Turkey, and was substituted by Miljenko Mumlek just after the hour mark.[4]

Honours

Club

Hajduk Split

Maccabi Haifa

International

Croatia

Individual

References

  1. ^ a b "Povratak Hajdučkog srca" (in Croatian). Slobodna Dalmacija. 4 August 2003. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
  2. ^ "Player Database". EU-football. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  3. ^ "Appearances for Croatia National Team". RSSSF. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  4. ^ "Nenad Pralija - Statistike" (in Croatian). Croatian Football Federation. Retrieved 10 February 2009.

External links