Elvir Bolić
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Elvir Bolić (born October 10, 1971 in Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, SFRJ) is a Bosnian football (soccer) forward, the all-time leading scorer and appearance leader for the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team. He is currently playing for the Croatian side of Rijeka. Elvir Bolić is somewhat of a legend in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Loved by the fans and respected by his teammates, Bolić was always admired for his hard work on the pitch and great footballing skills. He is also known for breaking Manchester United's proud 40 year unbeaten home record in Europe when he scored for Fenerbahçe's 1-0 win on 30th October 1996. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bolić has appeared 52 times, scoring 22 goals, both national records (as of January 2006). His first appearance came in 1996 against Greece.
[edit] Career
His career started in his hometown, Zenica, where he played for a local club, Čelik from 1988 to 1991. He was the member of Čelik's most successful youth generation ever, from which several other players emerged and later on played for the Bosnian national team. Those were former team captain Mirsad Hibić, Nermin Šabić and Senad Brkić.
During those years, Čelik struggled in the lower leagues of ex-Yugoslavia and had to bring up fresh new talent from its youth setup which allowed Bolić to show his skills. He and a couple of his teammates earned a call-up for the ex-Yugoslavian U18 national team.
This allowed Bolić to be noticed by the powerhouse of that time, Red Star Belgrade which brought him to their youth team in December 1991. Red Star management, led at the time by Dragan Džajić and Vladimir Cvetković, thought very highly of Bolic's talent and groomed him to take over an important midfield role. However, because of the political situation in SFR Yugoslavia at the time, young 20-year-old Bolić defected from the Yugoslav national side training camp in France in the spring of 1992. He later informed the Red Star people he would not be coming back to Belgrade either. He left Red Star Belgrade without playing a single first team game for them.
From there he went to Turkey where he became a legend and one of the best foreign players ever to appear in the Turkish Premier Super League. Bolić spent most of his club career in Turkey, where he played for Galatasaray (1992), Gaziantepspor (1993-95), Fenerbahçe (1995-2000), Istanbulspor (2003-04), and Gençlerbirligi, Malatyaspor (2004-2005). He also played for Spain's Rayo Vallecano (2000-03). In 2005-2006, he returned to Istanbulspor, but only for a season, now he's playing for Rijeka.
Bolić is the best player ever to put on a jersey of the Bosnian national team. Although Safet Sušić, and lots of other Bosnian football legends are clearly better than him, they have never played for the Bosnian national team, rather Yugoslavia national team, because the Bosnian national team was just formed in 1996.
[edit] Goals(for Fenerbahçe)
- 1995/96: 23 goals
- 1996/97: 24 goals
- 1997/98: 6 goals
- 1998/99: 6 goals
- 1999/00: 11 goals
