Milutin Šoškić

Milutin Šoškić

Šoškić in 2006
Personal information
Date of birth	(1937-12-31) 31 December 1937
Place of birth	Peć, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Youth career
1948–1955	Partizan
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1955–1966	Partizan	177	(1)
1966–1971	1. FC Köln	65	(0)
Total		242	(1)
International career
1959–1966	Yugoslavia	50	(0)
Managerial career
1973–1976	OFK Beograd
1977	OFK Kikinda
1979–1990	Partizan (assistant coach)
1993–2006	United States (goalkeeper coach)
Medal record Men's Football Representing Yugoslavia Olympic Games 1960 Rome Team European Championship 1960 France Team
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Milutin Šoškić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милутин Шошкић; born 31 December 1937) is a Serbian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is considered one of FK Partizan's greatest players.

Biography

After retiring, he embarked on a coaching career. He was a long-time assistant in FK Partizan and was also the head coach of OFK Kikinda in the 1970s.

In 1993, the USA national team head coach Bora Milutinović brought him into his staff to be the goalkeepers coach. Šoškić remained even after Milutinović left in 1995, continuing to work with the team under head coaches Steve Sampson and later Bruce Arena. He left the team along with Arena after the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Playing career

Šoškić started training Football when he was 11 in Red Star, for which he played six months, but because of a small misunderstanding with the host of the stadium, he decided to continue his career at Partizan where he spent most of his career.

Soon after Šoškić was called to play for Yugoslavia youth team, captain and the best individual of Partizan youth setup which won two National Championship titles. He quickly became standard starter for the first team of The Black-Whites, for which he played totally 387 matches during his time at the club.

After performing well at Partizan he was invited to play for the national team of Yugoslavia. Šoškić inherited the position of Vladimir Beara as a new goalkeeper. For Yugoslavia he played 50 games.

First big competition that Šoškić played with the national team was 1960 European Nations' Cup. Team won the silver medal after winning in Semi-final match against competition host France with the result of 5:4 which is still a record to this day of Most goals scored in a single match in UEFA European Championship. In the finals Yugoslavia was defeated by Soviet Union 2:1 after extra time.

That same year Šoškić won an Olympic gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy with the Yugoslavia national team. They topped their pool consisting of Bulgaria, United Arab Republic and Turkey before beating Italy in the semi-finals and crowning themselves champions after beating Denmark 3–1 in the final. At the tournament, Šoškić only conceded six goals.

At the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile Yugoslavia won fourth place after being defeated by Czechoslovakia 3:1 in Semi-finals and Chile 1:0 in a third place match.

Šoškić experienced great recognition when he was invited to play in the 1963 England v Rest of the World football match at Wembley Stadium and secured his place among best football players of that time.

European Cup with Partizan

In the sixties „Partizan's babies“ were dominant to that extent in Yugoslav First League so much that in five league seasons they lifted the trophy four times, of that three times in a row 1960–61, 1961–62 and 1962–63.

By winning the title of champions of Yugoslavia in the season 1964–65, Partizan acquired the right to play in the European Cup. Partizan's babies led by coach Abdulah Gegić were a serious rival to any European club at the time.

Partizan played in the following composition in most of the European Cup matches:

• (1) Šoškić (Goalkeeper), (2) Fahrudin Jusufi, (3) Velibor Vasović (Captain), (4) Branko Rašović,(5) Ljubomir Mihajlović,(6) Vladica Kovačević,(7) Radoslav Bečejac,(8) Mane Bajić,(9) Mustafa Hasanagić,(10) Milan Galić,(11) Josip Pirmajer. Coach Abdulah Gegić.

In Preliminary round for his first opponent Partizan got French champions FC Nantes. Winning in Belgrade on JNA Stadium with 2:0 and a draw 2:2 in a return match on Stade Marcel-Saupin, first obstacle was skipped with a total score of 4:2.

The next opponent was the champion of West Germany Werder from Bremen. Werder was eliminated with a total score of 3:1, in Belgrade it was 3:0 and on Weser-Stadion in Bremen 0:1.

In Quarter-finals Partizan had to face against champions of Czechoslovakia Sparta from Prague. First game on Stadion Letná Partizan lost with 4:1, while he won the second game in Belgrade with the result 5:0 and thus qualified for the semi-finals with a total score of 6:4.

External links

• Milutin Šoškić at Reprezentacija.rs (in Serbian)
• Milutin Šoškić at fussballdaten.de (in German)