by Miroslav KOS
Prekazi was a brilliant technician, had great overview of the game, pretty good speed, extremely quick "start" that would almost always leave opponents behind; he knew how to score, how to assist, but the fans mostly recall thunderbolts unleashed by his left foot.
When that slender boy appeared, no one could have guessed that the Yugoslav football would find in him one of the best and most noble strikers, rivaled by few even today. Prekazi was the 70s counterpart of today's great strikers such as Roberto Carlos and Sinisa Mihajlovic.
Prekazi spent ten years in Partizan, and went to Hajduk after misunderstandings with the management of the team. Xhevad Prekazi found true fame and justice only in Turkey. Only with Prekazi, after 13 years of waiting, today powerful Galatasaray won the national championship, which, practically, started the era of domination of this great football club that continues until today.
Recently, I spent several hours with Prekazi in the restaurant of a small football club Sindjelic. Right after the end of a rainy training session with kids enrolled in the football school run by Sindjelic. He ordered coffee, lit a cigarette...
Gift of nature: My elder brothers Ljuan and Fatos were also football players. Ljuan played for Partizan between 1967 and 1970. I had two brothers and three sisters. I also loved football. I started playing for Remont football club from Kosovska Mitrovica. My first coach was late Pera Zarkovic.
I always had a powerful strike. Always. That's a gift of nature. But, one also must learn how to kick the ball, improve. I learned a lot from Vladica Kovacevic and late Zoran Miladinovic when I arrived in Partizan in 1974. It's not enough to have a powerful kick; you must know where to strike the ball, how the other foot should be placed, how to jerk the striking foot... Today, in our football, I do not see any good strikers, who know how to execute free kicks from twenty, thirty meters away from the goal. Our football players, as well as their coaches, do not work on that enough. They do not feel like working hard. Free kicks are not their only problem. Many players playing in the premier league cannot pass well, do not know how to center properly. At my time, there were not many players like that; today there are quite a few. Football is a simple game: you receive the ball, play and kick... But all of that must be done very quickly. Today, many players and coaches behave as if they do not have TV sets at home and do not follow the game, the way it's played abroad. Very fast. Everything must be done very quickly, as the opponent won't leave you time to mess around with the ball. But that requires good technique, and our contemporary players have problems with their technique.
Play, kid: I joined Partizan after several noted games for the under-21 Yugoslav national team. They called Ljuan and asked about me. I signed in 1974, played for the youth team and for the first team on Sundays, in friendly games. I fought for the second spot on the team. It was not easy. Once, we had a training session on the side pitch, on the clay surface. Golac was covering me. I played well and managed to push the ball between his legs. The next time he blew me away, you know, manly... I landed on the ground. Bora Djordjevic, a Partizan and Yugoslav national team legend, he could dribble really well, came up to me and gave me a hug. He said: "Kid, don't you worry! Just push that ball between his legs and play." I remembered those words, and followed his advice all of my life. I still play that way today in the Senior League.
Days with Mladinic: Partizan did really well while coached by Ante Mladinic and Zoran Miladinovic. They introduced order and hard work, Mladinic demanded that everyone be held responsible for what he was supposed to do. In the whole club. I think that's why he later left. Some in the club did not like that. And he was on the way to creating a great, European-class football team. We started the 1977-78 season with the goal of ending up among the first four teams in the national championship. Objectively, Zvezda, Dinamo and Hajduk were all better than us. Mladinic knew what he wanted. Before a game, his meetings never took more than ten minutes. We had a quick discussion, he allocated tasks and off to the game. We finished the autumn part of the season in the first spot with 29 points collected in 17 games. We were only defeated once, in Mostar, and had two draws. We demolished Zvezda at their stadium. We were up 2 to nothing after only twenty minutes. Immediately afterwards Staja Nikolic threw the ball with his hands from an empty net. The referee got scared that we would destroy them and did not dare call a penalty. We did not object. We knew we were better. Nevertheless, Zvezda got back in the game, scored, had a chance to equalize. However, in the end Zavisa scored and the final score was 3 to 1 for us.
After every game Mladinic criticized and analyzed. Everything that had not worked would be corrected during the following week. After the winter break he gathered us and told us that if we did not win the championship we would not be paid bonus for victories. We won the championship. That was the most convincing victory ever in the Yugoslav national championship at that time. We had 54 points, out of 60 that could be won. That record has never been surpassed. On average 27,000 fans watched our games at the YPA stadium. And just consider how many spectators watch games today.
Pera Borota: Mladinic and Miladinovic are the two most honest men I've ever met. They did not care about money. Not at all. They loved football, they loved teaching us about football and work. When the following season we played the European champions cup, we were jinxed. In the first game against Dinamo from Dresden, I scored in the first half. At the beginning of the second half, Gajica Djurovic scored the second goal, and only a minute or two later there was an electricity blackout. Darkness. Electricity came back some thirty minutes later, but we had gotten cold in the meantime. Germans got their act together, defended, and the score remained two to nothing. They avoided a worse defeat. In Dresden we lost also two to nothing, so the game went to the penalty kick shootout. That's the game when our goalie, Pera Borota, left a live ball on the grass, in front of his goal, and their player, who was returning to the pitch, simply kicked it in the goal. I can still picture that scene. Even the referee did not realize that that was a goal! Only when he saw some commotion, saw that something had happened, Dinamo players were celebrating, some of our guys were shouting at Pera, the referee approached one of the deputies and asked him what had happened. The deputy referee explained and it was a goal. We were shocked, but we still held our fate in our hands. We failed and it's a pity that Borota remains remembered by that fluke. He was a great goalie. He was a world-class goalie. It was really hard to score against him, I know that. That season, when we won the national championship, I don't know how they managed to score against him at all.
Departure to Hajduk: When Mladinic left, the club was in a crisis. There was no leadership, it was a sinking ship. Coaches kept switching. I did my mandatory military service. I served with the Navy, for 14 months. All that time I had no contacts with the club, apart from one visit, by Moca Vukotic. I left Partizan in December 1983. We had won the championship the previous season, but the new season started so-so. Until this day I have no idea why I was pulled off the first team. Cava Dimitrijevic, late Mance and I were sent to the bench. Supposedly we were playboys, stayed out late, drank and so on. I never did anything like that. That simply was not true. I worked hard, but I kapt sitting on the bench. Then, I requested to be released and allowed to transfer to Hajduk, because Mladinic was there. Newspapers wrote that I was leaving Partizan. Dragan Dzajic [from Crvena Zvezda] called me, I am grateful, that was a great recognition. I kept thinking, but I could not play for Zvezda. I am a loyal "Partizanovac", black and white, my whole life was black and white and I simply could not play for Zvezda [Partizan and Crvena Zvezda are great rivals]. I apologized to Dzajic, thanked him and he said: "You always have open doors in Zvezda". I am still grateful.
I had a good time with Hajduk for a year and a half. We won the national cup and reached the semifinals of the UEFA cup. We were kicked out by Tottenham. We won 2:1 in Split and lost 1:0 away. They won the UEFA cup that year.
America, then Turkey: Then, I wanted to go abroad. I had a possibility to sign for Bordeaux, but that fell through. Late Branko Perovanovic invited me to come to America, to play indoors soccer. I went to Baltimore, the team was called Baltimore Blast. For six months. Srba Stamenovic played with me. Unfortunately, he also is not alive today. He was the best indoors soccer player I've ever seen. Resad Kunovac was also there. We played in the play-off finals and lost. I made a bundle, much more than if I had stayed with Hajduk.
When I returned from America, I went with my manager to Spain. The Spaniard tried to sell me to Elche, which fought for the survival in the premier division. So he came and said: "I have one good and one bad news for you. The bad news is that we don't have a deal, and the good news is that you are too good for this club anyway. You are good enough to play for Real or Barcelona, but they buy big names only, and your name does not mean anything to them. I'll try to fix something with Real Betis." And I went back to Belgrade. As soon as I arrived, Zoran Simovic called me. He had been with me in Hajduk, and was at that time already a goalie for Galatasaray. Would I consider playing for Galatasaray? Why not. I wanted to play football, and did not feel like waiting. When I arrived in Turkey, the Spaniard called me and told me he had made a deal with Betis. I thanked him. He liked Yugoslav players. He later brought Hadzibegic to Betis.
Greatest honors: In Turkey I experienced something that I cannot even describe, the best a football player, a man can experience. Greatest honors. I was received by the president of Turkey, Kenan Evren. He decorated me. The next president, Turgut Ozal gave me the Turkish passport. But I refused to change my name. Citizenship is fine, but I'm keeping my name. And they agreed, although everyone has to change the name when getting the Turkish citizenship.
I spent seven wonderful years with Galatasaray. There I got my probably greatest satisfaction. We played an indoors soccer tournament during a winter break, in Germany, in Munich. We played against Bayern, Dinamo Kiev, Ajax, Nottingham. I was the best player of the tournament and since we were all staying at the same hotel, Cruyff, who at the time coached Ajax, came up to me during one breakfast. He wanted to know if I would consider playing for Ajax, he said he liked players of my sort. I could not believe my ears. Cruyff was my idol. I said I would love to play for Ajax. The next day he said that there was a problem with my Yugoslav citizenship, that I could not play in the Netherlands. He wanted to know whether I would mind if they tried to get another passport for me. At the time I still did not have the Turkish passport. When I returned to Istanbul, he called me and said that he was sorry but that they were unable to do anything. It does not matter, I was still flattered.
Favorite goal: With Simovic and myself, Galatasaray won the Turkish national championship for the first time after thirteen years. We were champions the following year as well. I played great. Honest. I was the foreign player who played most games and scored most gals. They published a book about me, named a street after me. Unbelievable. It was like a dream.
I scored my favorite goal for Galatasaray. We played the second game of the European Champions Cup quarterfinals against Monaco, in Cologne, because we had been punished. We won 1:0 in the first game. The score in the second game was 1:1 and I scored our goal. I scored from a free kick, some 35 meters away from the goal. It was an awesome kick; the ball went like a rocket, a meter from the ground, straight to the goalies corner. Our return to Istanbul was unforgettable. We were the first Turkish team to ever reach the semi-finals of the European Champions Cup. We later lost to Steaua Bucharest. Hundreds of thousands of fans waited for us. They took me in a car straight from the runaway, to the domestic traffic terminal, and then put me in a cab. When the crowd realized that I wasn't there, they came straight to my house. I went out to the balcony and thanked them, said I was tired. I asked them to sing together one song and then come see me the following day at the stadium. They sang the song that goes sort of like "may those who do not love Galatasaray die". It still gives me chills when I recall the noise. And really, they sang the song and left; they respected me that much.
When newspapers wrote about my alleged transfer to Fenerbahce, at one game fans chanted that they would set the stadium on fire if they let me go. I was ejected during that game. The referee could not leave the stadium for two hours, the fans wanted to lynch him. Then I had to make a TV appearance and explain that I wasn't going anywhere and the fans calmed down.
No farewell: The Turkish football gave me a lot, but we Yugoslav players gave a lot to them as well. Simovic, Dusan Pesic, Mersed Kovacevic, and coaches, Stankovic, Kaloperovic, Milos Milutinovic, Colakovic. We raised the level of their game, and just look where they are today, and where we are. Germans also did a lot there. At Galatasaray I had a great coach, Jup Derval, he adored me. He went as far as asking for my advice before putting together a team for important games. I worked really well with him. At Galatasaray I insisted that Derval put a 16-year-old kid on the team. He listened to me. His name is Tugaj. He plays for Blackburn today; he is a terrific player.
I left Galatasaray in 1992. There is a custom that departing players play a valedictory game, but the condition is that you retire after that. You have the right to invite whomever you want and the whole profit goes into your pockets. I said, fine, a farewell game, but I want to continue playing. No way. Then, I said, fine, no farewell game. The president of the club asked me if I was crazy. You realize how much money you're throwing away? I do, I said.
Return home: I played another season in Turkey, playing for Altay and then Bakirkoy. It was 1993. The situation in the country was really bad. I had no motivation to keep playing. I could not keep listening to all those stories of war and suffering. Turks asked me where I was going, back to the war. I said I was going home. And they did not understand. I simply came back from one training session and told my wife to start packing - we were going home. I told my boss and he understood. I said I did not need money, anything, I just wanted documents, so that I could continue playing in Belgrade.
When I returned to Belgrade, some old friends from Tudbenik called me. I played for them for a year and a half and retired at the age of 38. While I played for Trudbenik, I trained with other players, as always. My wife kept saying: "man, cool off, you're not a professional player anymore". But I could not.
I could not live without football. I completed a coaching school. Thus, I'll always be close to football. I coached smaller clubs. My favorite success is with Zeleznik, we managed to enter the premier division. Wherever I worked, I demanded certain things required by football. Sometimes I got them, most of the time not. They either could not provide them, or did not want to provide them. Then, I would leave. Still, it was nice. I cannot forget my first days as the coach of Zmaj, the enthusiasm.
Yugonostalgia: I never cared about politics. Everything that happened was and still is very painful for me. I never had problems in Belgrade as an ethnic Albanian. Belgrade gave me everything, Belgrade and football. Besides, if I did not feel good here, I would not keep coming back, I would not live here. But, I love this city, my friends are here. The was war horrible. My whole family was in Kosovo. They never objected to my living in Belgrade. My house, the house in which I was born in Mitrovica, was razed to the ground. But my worst experience was the game of senior players in Modrica. Nikola Vikic, a former Zeljeznicar player is a coach there. He insisted that I come. We went there and along the road I saw all those destroyed houses, all the misery. I could not calm down for a long time after that. What has happened to my beautiful Yugoslavia? Today I can't even go to Split, where I played for a year and a half, without a passport and a visa. I need a visa to go to Slovenia as well. I don't want to go there. Where is my country, my pride? That's what I thought while watching ruins in Bosnia. I played for the national youth team, for the Olympic team. All of us supported that country, we were proud to be Yugoslavs. We loved our national anthem. What has happened with that?
Unfulfilled wish: Today I coach kids and enjoy myself. Kids love football, their parents seem to be satisfied as well. They never called me from Partizan. Still, once in a while, I play a game for the senior Partizan team. I love the pitch, grass. Sometimes I loved playing at the old Hajduk pitch, then in Zagreb, in Maksimir, that is a great stadium; I always liked playing in Sarajevo, at Grbavica. I have only one regret related to football: I never played at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.