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Robert Prosinecki at Azerbaijan: Pompey icon plots Germany upset

ROBERT PROSINECKI

As the great Robert Prosinecki prepares his Azerbaijan team to face Germany live on Sky Sports this weekend, Adam Bate examines his extraordinary career…

Robert Prosinecki likes a left-field move. This is the ex-Real Madrid man who joined Johan Cruyff's dream team at Barcelona. The European Cup winner once rated as one of the game's great playmakers, who found himself in the Championship with Portsmouth at the age of 32. So perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that he is now the manager of Azerbaijan.

Former Pompey defender Linvoy Primus remembers their year together on the south coast well. For one season, Prosinecki lit up the division - and 40 cigarettes a day - as he smoked the defenders of English football's second tier. He was named in the PFA team of the year and made such an impression in his 33 appearances that he is in Portsmouth's all-time XI.

"It was unbelievable when someone of his stature turned up at the club," Primus tells Sky Sports. "It was not the most attractive of places to come compared to where he had been before. Then when you saw his ability in training, he still had it. He didn't have the pace that he probably had before, but he definitely had the same skill level and ball control.

Croatia legend Robert Prosinecki in action for Portsmouth in the Championship
Image: Croatia legend Prosinecki in action for Portsmouth in the Championship

"It was evident in the first keep-ball session. It was a little circle with two players in the middle and you had to win the ball off the men on the outside. He nutmegged the players inside a couple of times. If you did that once that was great but he did it a number of times. Everyone just applauded him.

"Of course, there are players who perform in training but you get to games and it's a bit different. But he did it in games as well. I remember at Nottingham Forest, we lined up in the tunnel and Marlon Harewood just turned to him and said, 'You are an absolute genius.' That was before the game started. When it did, he ran the show and scored the winner."

Jan 1993:  Robert Prosinecki of Real Madrid in action during a match.
Image: Prosinecki in action for Spanish giants Real Madrid as a player in 1993

Prosinecki has always been a bit of a drifter, providing moment of magic interspersed with long spells on the sidelines and time away from the spotlight. On the one hand, there were the three World Cups, the European Cup glory and the Clasico games. On the other, there was his year on loan at Oviedo, the stint in Slovenia and the unexpected move to Belgium.

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From the moment that Croatia's legendary coach Miroslav Blazevic kicked the teenage Prosinecki out of Dinamo Zagreb with the famous line that "if this lad makes it as a professional footballer, I'll eat my coaching certificate", he always did things his way. That never changed even into his days at Portsmouth.

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"He did have a cigarette at half time, the rumours are true," says Primus, laughing at the memory of the genius who once graced Fratton Park. "The waft of cigarettes coming from the toilet every now and then would be him. It was not part of the British culture, but when he performed like he did on the pitch, you couldn't argue with his lifestyle."

It doesn't necessarily conjure up images of the sort of disciplinarian coach that might be expected to organise one of international football's minnows. But Primus does recall a "team man" who "wasn't scared to voice his opinion" in team meetings. "Whatever he said you respected because he had done it at the highest level for many years," he adds.

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When Prosinecki replaced Berti Vogts in 2014, Azerbaijan needed more than a respected voice. They were not only bottom of their qualifying group for Euro 2016 but also without a point after four defeats in a row. "I am an optimist and I believe this team has potential," said Prosinecki, but few truly saw the 2018 World Cup as a plausible target. That's changed.

In hindsight, there were hints of the improved organisation that would see Azerbaijan open their World Cup qualifying campaign with three consecutive clean sheets. Prosinecki's team held Norway and his own country Croatia to goalless draws in 2015 but he has since added attacking ambition on the counter-attack too and brought younger talent into the squad.

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They now sit level with Northern Ireland in the race for a play-off place with seven points from four games. Prosinecki calls his team the revelation of the qualifiers and has spoken of the euphoria in the country. There were 35,000 in Baku to see the 1-0 win over Norway and there will be many more in the national stadium to see them face Germany on Sunday.

For Prosinecki, the identity of the opposition seems particularly appropriate. Germany is where he was born, having spent the first decade of his life in the town of Schwenningen on the eastern edge of the Black Forest while his parents were guest-workers in the country. Not only that but he has history on the football field against Germany too.

Croatia before their 1998 World Cup game against Jamaica
Image: Prosinecki and the Croatia team line up at the 1998 World Cup in France

"I was born in Germany and lived there for 10 years but I never felt anything special when I played against German teams," Prosinecki once said. But special is the only way to describe Red Star Belgrade's destruction of Bayern Munich en route to winning the 1991 European Cup. Special is certainly an apt word to describe Croatia's efforts at the 1998 World Cup.

Their 3-0 win over Germany in the quarter-finals was perhaps Croatia's finest hour in football. A repeat of anything like that result at the weekend is way too much to expect but with Northern Ireland having to go to Baku in June and plenty to play for in Group C, Azerbaijan's finest footballing hour suddenly doesn't feel so far away.

And once again, Prosinecki's left-field move looks set to leave a lasting legacy.

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