Croatian footprint in Pilsen’s Viktoria. What is midfielder Drenovac doing today?

But that is already a long time ago, let’s go to the more recent one, when midfielder Dejan Drenovac, who wore the jersey of Viktoria in the late 90s of the last century, left a rather significant mark on the Pilsen club. One of his teammates was then Zdeněk Bečka, the current assistant to coach Miroslav Koubek, but also the brothers Tomáš and Lukáš Došková, Jiří Skála, Jiří Studeník, Miloš Slabý or captain Miroslav Mika.

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“But I’m not the only footballer who played for Dynamo and Victoria. Our next one was Dejan Vrajić, a strong blond striker, his figure reminded me of Alen Bokšić,” recalled Dejan Drenovac, a compatriot whom he met briefly in Pilsen. But Vrajič managed to play only 159 minutes in six games.

Drenovac, who came to Pilsen in January 1998 from Croatian HNK Suhopolje, was more successful. He played 29 games for Victoria in two seasons, scoring three goals. He added three more league starts for Jablonec, from where he went to Tigres Juarez in Mexico, he also worked in Israel’s Hapoel Raanana, then returned to his native country and played until the age of 49.

And what is Drenovac doing today?

He is the assistant coach of the junior team Mladost from Ždralov, a suburb of Bjelovar, where he was born. This team is on a rampage in the junior league, in fifth place among sixteen clubs. Varaždin, Rijeka, Istra 1961, Gorica and Slaven Belupo crouch behind him. “We have three junior representatives of Croatia,” Drenovac says with pride in his voice. Although the senior team only plays in the third league, it has promotion ambitions. “We hope that we will be able to do it already this year,” wishes the former footballer, who wore the jersey of Viktoria Plzeň and Dinamo Zagreb, current rivals in the Conference League.

Zagreb is heading to Pilsen, the Victorians can decide on the progress

“I like them the most out of all the clubs I’ve played for. I still have the Viktoria jersey with the number 7 hidden away, of course the Dinamo one with the five-pointed coat of arms,” ​​Dejan Drenovac confessed in an interview for Večernji list and added a story with the famous goalkeeper Petr Čech, who was then in the youth of Pilsen. Radek Havel and Jiří Vosyk caught for the first league team, the coach was the legendary Petr Uličný.