Ante Šimundža

Ante Šimundža
Personal information
Full name Ante Šimundža
Date of birth (1971-09-28) 28 September 1971
Place of birth Maribor, SFR Yugoslavia
Height 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in)
Playing position Striker
Club information
Current team
-
Youth career
Železničar Maribor
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
–1991 Kovinar Maribor
1991–1996 Maribor 170 (64)
1997 Sendai
1997 Maribor 2 (0)
1998 Young Boys 7 (0)
1998 Malmö 3 (0)
1999–2000 Maribor 56 (14)
2001 La Louvière 12 (5)
2001–2002 Železnik 14 (11)
2002–2003 Šmartno ob Paki 27 (9)
2003–2005 Wildon
National team
1993–1999 Slovenia 3 (0)
Teams managed
2011–2012 Mura 05
2012 GAK
2013 Mura 05
2013 Aluminij
2013–2015 Maribor

* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

† Appearances (goals)

Ante Šimundža (born 28 September 1971 in Maribor) is a Slovenian association football manager and former professional footballer. He has been a head coach of Maribor from September 2013 until August 2015.[1]

Club career

He started his career in the youth selections of Železničar Maribor and moved to Maribor after the independence of Slovenia in 1991.[2] He stayed there for six seasons scoring 64 league goals in 170 appearances.[3] He played for a number of different foreign clubs between 1997 and 1998, however, plagued by constant ankle injuries he soon returned to his home town club.[2] There he was an important part of Maribor's qualification to the UEFA Champions League during the 1999–2000 season.[2] He was the scorer of the winning goal in the first round of the group stage when Maribor defeated Dynamo Kyiv in Kiev, Ukraine.[4] In 2001 he again moved abroad and played for La Louvière and Železnik, before returning to his native country and finishing his professional career in Šmartno.[3] Šimundža has made a total of 255 Slovenian PrvaLiga appearances, scoring 87 goals in the process.[3] Considered a Maribor club legend, he is tied with Gregor Židan as a player with the most appearances for the club during the 1990s.[5]

International career

Šimundža has been capped three times for the Slovenia national football team between 1993 and 1999.[6] He has represented his nation on matches against Estonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece.[6]

Coaching career

Šimundža began his coaching career in 2003, when he was a coach of the youth selections at Železničar Maribor, where he started his career as a player. He started his senior coaching career in 2008, when he was appointed as an assistant coach of Darko Milanič at Maribor.[7] He was part of Maribor's sports department until 2011 when he was selected as a head coach of Mura 05.[8] His season with Mura 05 was impressive and he turned the team around, changing it from a relegation contender to the eventual UEFA competitions qualifier, as the club finished third during the 2011–12 Slovenian PrvaLiga season.[2] By the end of his first season as head coach, he was nominated for the best coach in the league.[9] He then accepted an offer of the one time Austrian champions, GAK, signing with the club in June 2012.[10]

Personal life

Šimundža was born in Maribor, present day Slovenia as the youngest of two children, with his sister being six years older than him.[2] His father was a Croat from Split and his mother a Slovene from Kidričevo.[2] He is married and has two sons named Luka and Jure, who got their names after their grandfathers.[2]

See also

References

  1. Jaka Lopatič (17 August 2015). "Šimundža dobil nogo, danes znan že novi trener" [Simundza kicked out, new coach will be known today] (in Slovenian). Siol Sportal. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tamara Pocak (28 May 2012). "Žena se zaman trudi, da bi me spravila na plesišče" (in Slovenian). Ekipa. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 "Ante Šimundža" (in Slovenian). Association of 1. SNL official website. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  4. "Zapisnik: Dinamo Kijev – Maribor" (in Slovenian). NK Maribor official website. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  5. NK Maribor (13 December 2010). "Veličastnih 50" (in Slovenian). nkmaribor.com. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
  6. 1 2 "Ante Šimundža" (in Slovenian). Football Association of Slovenia official website. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  7. Borut Cvetko (Photo) (5 August 2009). "Zlatko Zahovič, športni direktor NK Maribor , Ante Šimundža, pomočnik trenerja NK Maribor in Darko Milanič, trener NK Maribor" (in Slovenian). mediaspeed.net. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
  8. S.J. (24 August 2011). "Šimundža na klopi Mure nasledil Pevnika" (in Slovenian). RTV Slovenija. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  9. D.O. (9 May 2012). "Za igralca leta se poteguje kar 11 nogometašev Maribora" (in Slovenian). Delo. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  10. Matej Rijavec (25 June 2010). "Mura išče novega trenerja: Šimundža skočil čez mejo" (in Slovenian). RTV Slovenija. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
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