At the session, the new head coach of the Bosnia and Herzegovina “A” national team was elected, and our best national team will be led by Faruk Hadžibegić in the coming period. This expert already served as a head coach in 1999, so this will be his second term on the Dragons’ bench.
On this occasion, a press conference was held in the premises of the BH FF, where media representatives were addressed by Vico Zeljković, Faruk Hadžibegić, and the director of the “A” national team Zvjezdan Misimović.
“We are starting the new year in a good mood, because we have elected a new head coach, whom I congratulate on his appointment. Our goal is to qualify for EURO 2024. At today’s session, the Executive Board unanimously chose Faruk Hadžibegić, which shows that there is unity among us and that we think football-wise. Also, I would like to thank Ivaylo Petev, with whom we also had a fair cooperation and achieved good results. We analysed everything that happened in the last two years and decided that we need a new face, new energy. I hope that we will achieve a historic result and qualify for the European Championship”, said President Zeljković, among other things, and announced new infrastructure projects of the BH FF.
Misimović stated:
“I take this opportunity to welcome the new head coach and good luck in the upcoming qualifiers. We know who we are in the group with, there are no easy opponents, but I believe we have a chance to qualify for the European Championship.”
In his address to the media, Hadžibegić said, among other things:
“I have always felt like a part of the Federation and I feel proud, pleased, and responsible that I will be the head coach of our national team. I want to be a part of this project that aims to qualify for the European Championship. Our players play in different clubs and systems, and one of the tasks will be to combine it all and thus achieve the desired results. It’s up to us to justify what the audience is asking for. I have to be the first example, the one that the players will follow. In the coming period, I plan to visit all the players who will help us realize our project. We are not world champions, but we have to play like that, we have to go to win every match. We can lose, but we have to create the mentality that winning is a normal and usual thing for us.”
Faruk Hadžibegić was born on 7th October 1957 in Sarajevo. During his playing career, he played for FK Sarajevo from 1976 to 1985, where he played 241 matches and scored 25 goals. In the 1984/85 season with Sarajevo, he won the title of champion of Yugoslavia. He made 75 appearances for the Spanish Real Betis from 1985 to 1987 and scored 8 goals. In 1987, he went to French Sochaux, where he stayed until 1994. He played 242 matches for the French team and scored 16 goals. He ended his career in 1995 in Toulouse. He played 65 matches for the Yugoslav national team and scored 6 goals. He was a participant in the 1990 World Cup in Italy, in which Yugoslavia reached the quarter-finals.
He started his coaching career in Sochaux, with which he won promotion to the First League of France in 1997. In 1999, he was the head coach of the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After that, he took over Real Betis, which he led to the First League of Spain in 2001. He also coached the French Troy, and the Turkish clubs Gaziantepspor, Diyarbakirspor, and Denizlispor. In 2007, he returned to France where he coached Nior, Dijon, Bastia, Avignon, Valenciennes, and Red Star. From July 2020 to December 2021, Hadžibegić led the national team of Montenegro as a head coach, and his last appointment was in 2022 on the bench of MC Alger from Algeria.
