Dražen Ladić (; born 1 January 1963) is ženLadića Croatian professional football coach and former player who is the current assistant manager of the Croatia national team.
Playing career
Club
Ladić was born in Čakovec, but grew up in the nearby village of Gornji Hrašćan and started his career at NK Varteks in 1977, transferring to the club's senior squad in 1980. He left Varteks for Dinamo Zagreb in 1984, but the club decided to loan him to Iskra Bugojno for two seasons immediately after they signed him. He eventually made his debut for Dinamo in July 1986 and stayed at the club until the end of his playing career nearly 14 years later, collecting a record-holding total of 802 appearances in official matches.
During his time at the club, Ladić also played in several matches of both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup. In 1997, he notably saved a penalty kick in Dinamo Zagreb's home match against Partizan Belgrade in the first qualifying round for the UEFA Champions League, which they won 5–0. The Dinamo team continued to compete in the UEFA Cup after an unlucky 4-3 defeat on aggregate in the last minute of extra time against Newcastle United in the second qualifying round for the UEFA Champions League and got all the way to the third round, where they lost 2–1 on aggregate against Atlético Madrid.
In the autumn of 1998, Ladić debuted with Dinamo Zagreb in the group stages of the UEFA Champions League and played all six group matches before the club was eliminated from the competition by finishing second in their group, behind Olympiacos. The club repeated the success of qualifying for the UEFA Champions League group stages the following year, with Ladić making four group-stage appearances before being injured in the fourth group match against Sturm Graz and missing the final two matches before the team was eliminated from the competition after finishing last among the four teams in their group, one point behind the third-place Sturm Graz.
He soon recovered from the injury and continued to play for Dinamo until the end of the 1999–2000 season, making his last appearance for the club in the Croatian Cup finals against Hajduk Split on 16 May 2000 in Zagreb. With Dinamo, he won the Croatian First League champions title six times, in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000, as well as four Croatian Cup titles in 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998.
International
In early 1990, Ladić was for the first time in his professional career a candidate to play for the national team of former Yugoslavia and was also mentioned to be part of their squad at the 1990 FIFA World Cup finals in Italy, but was eventually omitted from the squad without making his debut for the team that year. He eventually made his international debut for at the time newly founded Croatia national team in their first international match, a friendly against the United States on 17 October 1990 in Zagreb. After winning his first two caps for Croatia, Ladić nevertheless managed to make his international debut for Yugoslavia as well. He appeared in two matches, playing all 90 minutes in a friendly against Turkey on 27 February 1991 in İzmir and being the team's substitute goalkeeper in the last 25 minutes of a Euro 1992 qualifier against the Faroe Islands on 16 May 1991 in Belgrade. The match against the Faroes was also the last where Croatian footballers have played in the Yugoslavia national team.
Ladić went on to become the first-choice goalkeeper of the Croatia national team throughout the 1990s and won a total of 59 international caps before he retired in May 2000. His competitive debut for the Croatia national team came in the team's first qualifying match for the UEFA Euro 1996 against Estonia on 4 September 1994 in Tallinn. He went on to make nine out of possible ten appearances in that qualifying campaign, only missing the team's away match against Ukraine due to a one-match suspension for a red card received in the previous home match against Slovenia. He was also the team's starting goalkeeper at the Euro 1996 finals in England, making three out of possible four appearances and only missing the final group match against Portugal where Croatia started to play with seven players who were normally left on the bench. Croatia was eliminated from the tournament in the quarterfinals after losing 2–1 to Germany.