 Belin andPelé in September 1969 | ||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Rudolf Belin | |||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1942-11-04)4 November 1942 | |||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia | |||||||||||||
| Date of death | 3 November 2025(2025-11-03) (aged 82) | |||||||||||||
| Place of death | Zagreb, Croatia | |||||||||||||
| Position | Defender | |||||||||||||
| Youth career | ||||||||||||||
| 1957–1959 | Jedinstvo Zagreb | |||||||||||||
| 1959–1960 | Dinamo Zagreb | |||||||||||||
| Senior career* | ||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||
| 1960–1970 | Dinamo Zagreb | 191 | (31) | |||||||||||
| 1970–1972 | Beerschot VAV | 32 | (1) | |||||||||||
| Total | 223 | (32) | ||||||||||||
| International career | ||||||||||||||
| 1963–1969 | Yugoslavia | 29 | (6) | |||||||||||
| Managerial career | ||||||||||||||
| 1977–1978 | Dinamo Zagreb | |||||||||||||
| 1983 | Dinamo Zagreb | |||||||||||||
| 1989 | Dinamo Zagreb | |||||||||||||
| 1998 | Toronto Croatia | |||||||||||||
| 2001–2002 | Iraq | |||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | ||||||||||||||
Rudolf "Rudi"Belin (4 November 1942 – 3 November 2025) was a Yugoslav and Croatianfootballmanager and player. Belin spent most of his playing career with his hometown clubDinamo Zagreb in the 1960s, with whom he won threeMarshal Tito Cups and reached twoInter-Cities Fairs Cup finals. WithYugoslavia he played at the1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and was part of the squad that won silver atUEFA Euro 1968. His older brotherBruno was also an accomplished footballer.
Belin started his career at a small local club Jedinstvo Zagreb, and joinedDinamo Zagreb in 1959. His league debut for the club came on 21 May 1961 in anEternal Derby match againstHajduk Split, under managerMárton Bukovi, which was his only appearance in the 1960–61 season. By the 1962–63 season Belin established himself as part of the starting lineup under coachMilan Antolković as a right back or defensive midfielder. With Dinamo he reached the1963 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final in June 1963, which they lost to Spanish side Valencia 4–1 on aggregate, only a month after winning the1962–63 Yugoslav Cup by beating Hajduk Split in the final.
In May 1964 he reached his second cup final with Dinamo, in which they were defeated by Red Star, and later that year he was voted Dinamo Player of the Year, ahead of the club's prolific goalscorerSlaven Zambata.[1] Belin then helped Dinamo reach the1964–65 European Cup Winners' Cup quarter-final in March 1965, in which they were knocked out byTorino, and in May that yearanother Marshal Tito's Cup win followed.
Between March 1966 and the spring of 1967 Belin was away from the team serving his compulsory military service, and returned to join the squad just in time for the 1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup quarter-final againstJuventus.[1] Belin scored a free kick atMaksimir in Dinamo's 3–0 win, and was also a decisive player in the semi-final, as he scored an extra time penalty againstEintracht Frankfurt to edge the German side 4–3 on aggregate, in one of the biggest turnarounds in the competition's history.[1]
He went on to be a key player in the1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final, in which Dinamo triumphed overLeeds United led byDon Revie 2–0 on aggregate. It was the first and only European trophy won by any Yugoslav club until Red Star Belgrade's1991 European Cup win 24 years later. After that, Belin helped Dinamo to a third national cup in the1968–69 season.
Belin went on to make 410 appearances across all competitions for Dinamo, and his last league appearance was on 28 June 1970, the last match day of the 1969–70 season, in a home defeat againstNK Maribor. He then moved abroad to joinBeerschot VAV in Belgium where he spent two more seasons under coachAndrás Béres. During his time with Beerschot, he helped the club win the 1970–71Belgian Cup, although Belin did not play beyond the quarter-final stage. He finally retired from active football after the 1971–72 season.
In total, he appeared in 46 European matches over the course of his career, including 24 in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and 19 in the Cup Winners' Cup for Dinamo.[2]
He was voted Croatia's 36th footballer of the century in a 2000 poll by theVečernji List daily.[citation needed]
Belin was capped seven times for Yugoslavia youth teams between 1960 and 1963. His full international debut forYugoslavia came in October 1963 in afriendly match againstRomania inBucharest, under co-managersLjubomir Lovrić andHugo Ruševljanin, where he was named in the starting eleven along with two other Dinamo debutants,Zdenko Kobešćak andStjepan Lamza.
Belin played in all five of Yugoslavia's matches at the1964 Olympics football tournament in Japan, where the team reached the quarter-finals. He went on to earn a total of 29 caps, scoring six goals, for Yugoslavia, and was part of the squad at the1968 European Championship which lost the final to hosts Italy.
His final international appearance was a1970 World Cup qualifier played in October 1969 againstBelgium in Skopje, under managerRajko Mitić.[3]
After retirement, Belin studied inphysical education at theUniversity of Zagreb and went into coaching. He spent a number of years as a youth coach at Dinamo Zagreb, and had three spells managing the senior team, in the 1977–78 season, in August-September 1983, and in the spring of 1989. In 1998 he also briefly managedToronto Croatia in theCanadian Professional Soccer League, a club founded by Croatian emigrants in Canada.[4]
Belin also had a spell coaching theIraq national team for several matches in the2002 World Cup qualifiers in late 2001. These notably included a 2–1 defeat against regional arch-rivalsIran managed at the time by another Dinamo Zagreb legendMiroslav Blažević.
Belin died in Zagreb on 3 November 2025, one day before his 83rd birthday.[1][5]
Dinamo Zagreb
Beerschot VAV
Yugoslavia
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