Radomir Antić


Radomir Antić was a Serbian professional football manager and player.
Following a 17-year playing career as a defender, most of which he spent playing at Partizan, with whom he won the Yugoslav First League, Antić moved into coaching.
He was one of only two men to have managed both Barcelona and Real Madrid, long-time bitter rivals. With Atlético Madrid, Antić won the double, conquering both La Liga and the Copa del Rey in the 1995–96 season. He is the only man to have coached Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid.

Early life

Antić was born in Žitište to a Serb family that had settled in the small Banat town shortly before his birth. Born as the second son in the family, Radomir had an older brother Dragomir, two years his senior. The newborn was named after his maternal uncle, a notable World War II Partisan guerrilla fighter who was awarded the Order of the People's Hero gallantry medal for the engagement.
When young Radomir was six years old, the family moved to Titovo Užice, a city where Antić grew up and considered to be his hometown. After the family's arrival to Titovo Užice, another child, daughter Mira, was born.

Playing career

Antić started his playing career with Sloboda Titovo Užice and then moved to the club where he would play most of his career, Partizan. With Partizan, he won the national Championship in 1976.
In the summer of 1977, Antić signed for Fenerbahçe in Turkey. He spent one season in Istanbul before moving to the Spanish La Liga, where he played for Real Zaragoza.
In 1980, Antić moved on to Luton Town, a team in England's Second Division. Known in England as "Raddy", he helped Luton to the Second Division title in 1982, and stayed with the club for two seasons in the top division before leaving in 1984. At the end of the 1982–83 season, he played a key role in saving Luton from relegation, scoring a winning goal four minutes from time in the final League match of the season, away against Manchester City. City, the home team, were themselves relegated as a result. At full-time, Luton manager David Pleat ran across the pitch, hopping and waving his arms wildly in celebration.
Already in his 30s when he arrived at Luton, Antić already looked to coaching as a career option once his playing days are finished. While an active player in England, he enrolled in and completed the coaching college in Belgrade, Viša trenerska škola. In that regard, he often cites Pleat as an influence on his later coaching style.
After helping save Luton's First Division status, Antić spent one more season at Kenilworth Road before retiring at age 36.
Antić made one appearance for the Yugoslavia national team, appearing as a substitute in the 80th minute for injured Franjo Vladić in a friendly against Hungary on 26 September 1973 in Belgrade.

Managerial career

Early career

After finishing his playing career at age 36, Antić started a career in coaching as an assistant with Partizan, working under head coach Nenad Bjeković. Partizan won the 1985–86 league title amid a match-fixing controversy. They also won the 1986–87 league.
In early July 1987, Fahrudin Jusufi was brought in as the new head coach and initially Antić continued his assistant role. For the pre-season training ahead of the 1987–88 season, the team went abroad where Jusufi and Antić got into a row over player personnel issues that resulted in Antić being essentially demoted to the position of Partizan under-16 youth team coach.

Real Zaragoza

Antić's first head coaching position was with Real Zaragoza. In addition to formerly playing for the club, his appointment owed a lot to being recommended for the job by countryman Vujadin Boškov, who had been successfully leading the Italian side Sampdoria at the time while also enjoying a lot of clout in Spain having led Zaragoza and other La Liga clubs during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The squad was a fairly modest one without any really big names; the most notable players being the aging Spanish international midfielder Juan Señor and forward Miguel Pardeza who came up through Real Madrid's youth system as part of La Quinta del Buitre generation. The biggest summer signing was twenty-six-year-old striker Nasko Sirakov from Levski Sofia who had joined shortly before Antić's arrival. The club also had some young assets: a pair of twenty-two-year-olds Francisco Villarroya and Juan Vizcaíno who were well on their way to becoming future Spanish internationals as well as eccentric Paraguayan goalie José Luis Chilavert who came to the club from Argentina's San Lorenzo the same summer Antić did. Antić's made his La Liga coaching debut on 4 September 1988 against Valencia, a 0–0 draw. The initial period was rough, with the club hovering in and around the relegation zone, followed by a period of slight improvement, but still stuck in the lower half of the table. The sudden and somewhat unexpected breakthrough came during last eight league matches of the season as Antić's Zaragoza started posting win after win in a rapid climb up the table, finishing the season in fifth place, thus qualifying for the UEFA Cup.
He ended up spending two full seasons managing a club he also turned out for as a player.

Real Madrid

Real Madrid came calling in late March 1991 and Antić took over from club legend Alfredo Di Stéfano following los Merengues' elimination from the European Cup by Oleg Romantsev's Spartak Moscow at the quarter-final stage. Di Stéfano had been on thin ice since the 1–0 league defeat in mid-March away to mid-table Logroñés, but it was the 1–3 return leg quarter-final European Cup home loss against the Russians at the Santiago Bernabéu on 20 March 1991 that served as the last straw that prompted Di Stéfano's removal. In La Liga, at the time, after 26 matches, the club occupied the seventh position in the standings.
Used to winning major trophies, the royal club was in turmoil with Antić coming in as their third head coach of the season after John Toshack and Di Stéfano.

1990–91: Stopping the bleeding

After Di Stefano's sacking, Ramón Grosso took over the head coaching reigns on an interim basis for a few days while the club negotiated terms with Antić. Grosso ended up leading the team in only one match, the league contest at home versus against Real Oviedo on 24 March 1991 that ended in a somewhat disappointing 1–1 draw considering Oviedo played with ten men since the 68th minute.
With Emilio Butragueño, Míchel, Fernando Hierro, Manolo Sanchís, Gheorghe Hagi, and the aging Hugo Sánchez as the club's established stars, Antić's debut took place on 31 March 1991 at the Bernabéu with a 0–1 home loss to mid-table Real Burgos, a disappointing way to start his tenure at the club. The rest of the squad Antić found at his disposal included compatriot Predrag Spasić in central defence, defensive stalwart Chendo, central defender Jesús Solana, defensive midfielder Rafael Gordillo, midfielder Francisco Villarroya whom Antić had previously coached at Zaragoza, etc. Still, the league situation would get downright critical the week after as Madrid was beaten 3–1 away at Luis Aragonés' relegation-battling Espanyol by conceding two late goals, dropping los Merengues to the 10th spot in La Liga. After only two league matches, Antić was feeling the full pressure of the Real hotseat.
Things finally started clicking with a 4–0 home win versus Valencia on 14 April 1991, which started a five-match winning streak. The 3–3 away draw at Osasuna ended the streak, but the team quickly put together another three-match winning run to end the season. On 8 June 1991, the season ended on a high note with a 1–0 home win against champions-elect Barcelona in El Clásico. In total, Antić led Real in the final 11 league matches of the 1990–91 season, improving Real's standing to third in the league, and qualifying for the UEFA Cup.

1991–92: Success and sacking

During the 1991 summer transfer window, Antić brought in Robert Prosinečki, prominent member of the Red Star Belgrade's 1991 European Cup-winning side, as well as promising 21-year-old Luis Enrique from Sporting de Gijón.
Antić's team began the season in furious fashion with five straight league wins, grabbing the La Liga top spot ahead of El Clásico on 19 October 1991. Playing Johan Cruyff's Barça "dream team" at home at the Bernabéu, Real went ahead via a Prosinečki first half free-kick, one shining moment in the highly rated signing's otherwise disastrous season, before Ronald Koeman equalized courtesy of a second half penalty shot. Real's winning streak in the league had thus been broken, however, with the very next league match, a 3–0 home win over Logroñés, los Merengues commenced another winning streak, this time recording seven straight league wins as they tangibly separated themselves from the pack of chasers atop the La Liga standings.
One player especially excelled under Antić: twenty-three-year-old Hierro, normally a defender, was moved up further into midfield and responded by scoring in numbers, eventually ending the season on 21 league goals, the greatest single-season offensive output of his career. The second winning streak in the league ended with a draw away at Zaragoza in mid-December 1991. This was followed by a slight dip in form as Real recorded another draw the following week at home against Oviedo, before experiencing its first league loss of the season away at cross-town rivals Atlético Madrid, though still retaining top league spot by a comfortable margin. During this three-match period without a league win, club president Ramón Mendoza opted to bring Leo Beenhakker into the organization in a vaguely defined sporting director role, though Antić remained the team's head coach. The three-match winless streak ended with an emphatic 5–2 win at home versus Osasuna, but was followed by the second league loss of the season when Guus Hiddink's Valencia managed to overturn Real's 0–1 lead with two late goals and record a famous home win over the league leaders. Although Antić's team quickly got back on winning track with a 2–1 home win against Tenerife on 26 January 1992, the forty-three-year-old coach was terminated. At the time of Antić's termination, 19 league matches into the season, Madrid was holding the top spot in La Liga by a seven-point margin and was also smoothly through to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, having eliminated Slovan Bratislava, Utrecht, and Neuchâtel Xamax in the previous rounds. Information leaked to the club-adjacent media cited the team's play under Antić supposedly not being sufficiently attractive as the reason for the sack.
Led by Beenhakker, Real Madrid squandered its seven-point lead, losing the title to bitter rivals Barcelona on the last matchday of the season. Madrid were also eliminated from UEFA Cup by Torino in the semi-finals.
In an interview two decades later, Antić revealed that Real's club president Mendoza later privately apologized to him for "running me out of the club with the accompanying media campaign of accusations of playing 'ugly football'".