Nenad Pralija

Nenad Pralija (born 11 December 1970) is a former Croatian footballer.

Nenad Pralija
Personal information
Date of birth (1970-12-11) 11 December 1970
Place of birth Split, SFR Yugoslavia
Height 1.81 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 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)
National team
1993 Croatia U21 1 (0)
1995–1997 Croatia 11 (1)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Club career

Pralija started his career at his hometown club RNK Split where he spent three years before moving to the local powerhouse Hajduk Split. In his first season at Hajduk, the club had a successful Champions League campaign and Pralija is still dearly remembered by Hajduk fans for his spectacular volley in the group stage game against Anderlecht which was unstoppable for the Belgian side's goalkeeper Filip de Wilde, even though Pralija played the whole game playing as a left back - a position he never played at before. His form kept improving in subsequent seasons, and he finished the 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 La Liga club Espanyol where he started off as a first-team regular under José Antonio Camacho,[1] but soon fell out of the manager's favour so he returned to Hajduk for the second half of the 1998–99 season. After that he spent a year at Serie A club 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 Niko Kranjčar and Ivan Leko came to the club his increasingly poor performances pushed him out of the squad. During the 2005–06 season winter break he quietly left the club and moved to the lower level minnows NK Trogir where he ended his playing career and six months later took over as the club's sports director. He oversaw the club's promotion to 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. He played a total of 11 games 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.[2]

Honours

Club
Hajduk Split
Maccabi Haifa

International
Croatia

Individual
Hajduk Split

References
  1. "Povratak Hajdučkog srca" (in Croatian). Slobodna Dalmacija. 4 August 2003. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
  2. "Nenad Pralija - Statistike" (in Croatian). Croatian Football Federation. Retrieved 10 February 2009.

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