Predrag Pažin

Predrag Pažin
Personal information
Full name	Predrag Pažin
Date of birth	14 March 1973 (age 51)
Place of birth	Nevesinje, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.87 m (6 ft 1+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Centre back
Youth career
1987–1991	Velež Nevesinje
Senior career*
Years	Team
1991–1993	Sutjeska Nikšić
1993–1995	Rudar Pljevlja
1995–1999	Partizan
1999–2000	Levski Sofia
2001	Kocaelispor
2002	Spartak Pleven
2002	Beijing Guoan
2003–2005	Shakhtar Donetsk
2005–2007	Shandong Luneng
2008–2010	Lokomotiv Mezdra
Total
International career
2000–2004	Bulgaria
Managerial career
2011	Botev Kozloduy
2015	Lokomotiv 2012 Mezdra
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Predrag Pažin (Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic: Предраг Пажин; born 14 March 1973) is a former footballer who played as a defender. Born in Yugoslavia, he represented Bulgaria internationally.

Club career

He signed his first professional contract with Sutjeska from Nikšić, where he played from 1991 to 1993. Then, until 1995, he played for Rudar from Pljevlja. When in January he moved to Partizan. While he was playing for Partizan, he had an incident with Mateja Kežman during the match that Partizan played against Lazio. After one unsuccessful attack, Pažin blamed Kežman, to which he responded with insults, which caused Pažin to hit him. With Partizan, he was three times the champion of Yugoslavia and once the cup winner. When NATO bombed FR Yugoslavia in 1999, the championship was interrupted, Pažin was out of contract and, in May of the same year, he went to Werder Bremen for a ten-day trial.

He did not sign a contract with Werder, but he received an invitation from Ljupko Petrović, the coach of Levski Sofia at the time. With Levski, he won the title and the Bulgarian Cup, and was declared the best foreign player. He spent two seasons in Bulgaria during which he was offered citizenship and a chance to play for the country's national team - both of which he took. However, he was suddenly sold to Turkish side Kocaelispor, to which he moved in 2001. He won the cup in Turkey, but did not stay there long, so the following year he returned to Bulgaria, where he played for Spartak Pleven.

In the same year, he went to China, where he played for Beijing Guoan, coached by Ljupko Petrović. After China, in 2003 he moved to the Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk, for which he would play until 2005. He won the Ukrainian Cup with Shakhtar in 2004. He returned to China again in 2005, where he played for Shandong Luneng until 2007. The following year, he won the championship and the Cup of China. In the AFC Champions League match, which Shandong played against Al-Ittihad, Pažin was accused of spitting at the referee for which he was punished. The last club he played for was Lokomotiv Mezdra, from 2008 to 2010, where he ended his playing career.

International career

Pažin made his debut for Bulgaria in an August 2000 friendly match against Belgium in Sofia and has earned a total of 31 caps, scoring no goals.^[2] He was part of the Bulgarian 2004 European Football Championship team, which was eliminated in the first round, finishing bottom of Group C, having finished top of Qualifying Group 8 in the pre-tournament phase. His final international was against Italy at that tournament in Portugal.^[3] Pažin is the most capped non-Bulgarian-born player to appear for the national side.^[4]