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Dražen Besek
Personal information
Date of birth	10 March 1963 (age 61)
Place of birth	Varaždin, Croatia
Position(s)	Midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team
1980–1984	Varteks
1984–1985	Olimpija Ljubljana
1985–1991	Dinamo Zagreb
1991–1992	Stade de Vallauris
1992–1993	Ikast FS
1994–1996	Varteks
1996–1997	Casino Salzburg
1997–1999	Varteks
Managerial career
1998–2000	Varteks (player-manager)
2000–2001	Čakovec
2001–2002	Slaven Belupo
2002–2003	Varteks
2003–2005	Zagłębie Lubin
2006–2007	Drava Ptuj
2007–2009	Varteks
2010–2011	Shanghai Shenhua (assistant)
2011	China U23 (assistant)
2011–2012	Shanghai Shenhua
2012–2013	NK Zagreb
2013–2014	Hunan Billows
2014–2015	Wuhan Zall
2015	Tianjin Songjiang
2015	Osijek
2015–2016	Birkirkara FC
2018–2020	Shanghai Shenhua (adviser)
2022–2023	Maghreb de Fès (general manager)
2024–	NK Varteks Varazdin
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Dražen Besek (born 10 March 1963) is a Croatian football coach and a former professional football midfield player. As a player he spent most of his career playing for Croatian teams Varteks and Dinamo Zagreb before moving abroad and appearing for clubs in France, Denmark and Austria. After his playing career ended he went into management, and had several coaching spells at his hometown football club Varteks, before moving abroad again and joining Polish side Zagłębie Lubin, Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua and many others.

Club career

In Croatia, Besek played for Dinamo Zagreb in the Yugoslav First League and Varteks in the Croatian First Football League.^[1] In his international career, he played in French Stade de Vallauris, Danish Ikast FS (now called FC Midtjylland) and Austrian SV Casino Salzburg (now called FC Red Bull Salzburg)

Coaching career

Besek started his coaching career in his hometown football club of Varteks as a player-coach within the Croatian 1998–99 Prva HNL league season. He guided the club to the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in the same season. This was followed by a brief spell at second-tier club Čakovec, which he helped to promote to the top tier. He returned to another top-tier club with Slaven Belupo where in the 2001–02 Prva HNL he guided them to a respectable sixth^[2] and reached the 3rd round of UEFA Intertoto Cup when the team lost against Aston Villa.^[3] This saw Varteks interested in his services again where within the 2002–03 Prva HNL campaign he aided them to an improved third at the end of the season and a runner-up place in the Croatian Football Cup.

After that Besek joined Polish club Zagłębie Lubin where he promoted the club to the first Polish league^[4] and reached a runner-up place in Polish Cup.^[5]

In 2006, Besek joined top tier Slovenian club Drava Ptuj for a brief period before returning to Varteks for the third time as a manager.^[6] On 26 December 2009 Besek decided to leave the club after accepting a position from top tier Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua where he was an assistant coach to Miroslav Blažević. After his one-year contract with the club expired he followed Blažević to become an assistant coach for the China U-23 team.

On 10 August 2011 he returned to Shanghai Shenhua but this time as the head coach to replace Xi Zhikang for the rest of the season.^[7] After leaving Shenhua at the end of 2011, Besek took over NK Zagreb in March 2012.^[8] Besek would return to China with second-tier club Hunan Billows F.C. for the start of the 2013 China League One campaign.^[9]

In China he managed two more clubs, Wuhan Zall and Tianjin Songjiang before returning to Europe and taking over the top tier Osijek in 2015–16 Prva HNL. At the end of 2015, Besek took over Birkirkara FC with which he achieved the highest result in then Maltese football club European history kicking Scottish Hearts out of the UEFA Europa League qualifiers.^[10] From 2018 till 2020, Besek has been an adviser to Chinese Shanghai Shenhua. In his last spell, he took a general manager position at the Moroccan Maghreb de Fès.