Josip Kuže

Josip Kuže

Personal information
Date of birth	(1952-11-13)13 November 1952
Place of birth	Vranje, FPR Yugoslavia
Date of death
Place of death	Zagreb, Croatia
Position(s)	Defender
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1971–1981	Dinamo Zagreb	384	(14)
Managerial career
1982–1984	Sydney Croatia
1985–1986	BSK Slavonski Brod
1986–1988	Dinamo Zagreb (youth)
1988–1989	Borac Banja Luka
1989–1990	Dinamo Zagreb
1991–1992	Rot-Weiß Erfurt
1992–1994	Mainz 05
1995–1998	Gamba Osaka
1998–1999	NK Zagreb
2000	Chemnitz
2000–2002	Gamba Osaka
2003–2004	Inter Zaprešić
2005–2006	Dinamo Zagreb
2007	Rijeka
2007	Varteks
2007–2008	Rwanda
2008	JEF United
2009–2011	Albania
2012	Tianjin Teda
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Josip Kuže (13 November 1952 - 16 June 2013) was a Croatian football coach and former player. He was a player and later coach of Dinamo Zagreb where he played from 1971-1981 making a total of 384 appearances and scoring 14 goals.

Playing career

He was a professional football player with Dinamo Zagreb, winning 11 Yugoslavian U-21 caps. He played a minor role among the great players who still have their huge amount of respect today, mostly because in 1967 he was part of a team that won the UEFA cup and in 1982 a Yugoslavian championship. During his playing years with Dinamo as a defender from 1971 to 1981 he played in 384 games scoring 14 goals. Kuže scored only 1 goal in 1975/1976 season. During his career he played alongside Balkan footballing greats such as Zlatko Kranjčar, Snješko Cerin, Srećko Bogdan, Velimir Zajec, Ivica Senzen, Marko Mlinarić, Ismet Hadžić, Boro Cvetković and Stjepan Deverić.

Managerial career

After his playing career finished he started as coach of Sydney Croatia (1982–84) then he coached clubs such as BSK Slavonski Brod (1985–86), Dinamo Zagreb youth (1986–88), Borac Banja Luka (1988–89) before he became Dinamo Zagreb's coach in (1989–91). In 1991, he started coaching in Germany with FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt (1991–92) and later accepted the job from league-competition FSV Mainz 05, and stayed there until 1994. From 1995-98, he coached Japanese side Gamba Osaka. Kuže came back to Croatia to coach NK Zagreb (1998–99) and had a short stint with FC Chemnitz in 2000 and proceeded to coach Gamba Osaka again from 2000-2002. He then went to manage Inter Zaprešić from 2003–04 and in 2005 he took over coaching of Dinamo Zagreb again, winning the league title in his first year as coach.

Dinamo Zagreb coach

He took over the team after they suffered a poor year, finishing down in seventh place. With some new players, he enjoyed early success in the next championship (2005/2006) with 18-2-2 61:11 record in first part of the league, and the final record, after playoffs, was 24-4-4 78:21. After the first ten games, Dinamo's goal-difference was 32:3, which gave them the highest goal-difference for any professional club in Europe. During this time Dinamo were accredited with playing attractive football.

In the new season, 2006–07, some high-class players arrived, and Dinamo, beat French side Auxerre 2–1 during a pre-season friendly. Gameplay went worse in the new season, for the key defense midfielders could not give their best due to injuries, but still tremendous effort was made in second leg of Champions league qualifying round against Arsenal in London despite being 3-0 down from the first leg in Zagreb. Playing with a 5-3-2 formation, a much improved Dinamo side from the first leg, held a 1-0 lead until late into the game before Arsenal managed to turn it around with ten minutes remaining and eventually came away with a 2-1 victory. Despite the defeat Dinamo were praised, along with Kuze, for an impressive performance despite some injury concerns, Mathias Chago, Davor Vugrinec and Jens Nowotny all missed the match due to injury.

Despite his success in getting Dinamo in a position to challenge for the Croatian league after a several below-par years his teams performance against Arsenal was deemed not good enough and he left the club in November 2006 with both Kuze and the club stating the agreement was made with mutual consent.

Rwanda national team

In November 2007 Kuze was appointed manager of the Rwanda replacing Michael Nees who was sacked after failing to qualify for the 2008 African Cup of Nations. His initial contract will run for three years.

JEF United Ichihara Chiba

In January 2008, Japan's J. League side JEF United Ichihara Chiba announced that they appointed Kuze as their head coach. However, this reign lasted just four months., and he was replaced by Alex Miller.

Albania national team coach

Kuže entered in the history of Albania as the coach with the largest victory against Cyprus in 2009, 6-1 in a friendly. As of 27 March 2011 and after 18 months at the job, he has had four victories (including friendlies, with Cyprus and Northern Ireland), three losses, and five draws (of which an important one against Denmark in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers). He is still warmly remembered by the Red and Black Fans organization for deeply affiliating with the Albanian national team.

Statistics with the Albania team

As of 8 September 2014.

Team	From	To	Record
			G	W	D	L	Win %
Albania	6 June 2009	15 November 2011	27	9	8	10	33.33

Tianjin Teda

Kuže was appointed as the new manager of Chinese Super League side Tianjin Teda on 6 January 2012. On 20 May, Kuže waved money towards the referee after a Super League match which Tianjin Teda lost to Liaoning Whowin 2-1 by a controversial penalty in the stoppage time. On 22 May, he received a ban of 7 matches and was fined ¥38,000 by CFA for his act and his remarks on the press conference. He was released by Tianjin Teda on 28 May.

Death

On 16 June 2013, Kuže died of leukemia in Zagreb, aged 60, after a several months' battle with the disease.