Željko Čajkovski is a Croatian
football (soccer)Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
player and coach.
With the national team he won the silver medal in the football tournament of th 1948 Olympics held in lLondon, losing in the final 1-3 to Sweden, then starring the young
Gunnar NordahlGunnar Nordahl was a Swedish football player, best known for his play in AC Milan 1949-1956.-Sweden:...
,
Gunnar GrenGunnar Gren was a Swedish football player and coach. He is best known for playing for IFK Gothenburg and AC Milan. He was part of the famous "Gre-No-Li" trio of forwards at A.C. Milan and the Swedish national team...
and
Nils LiedholmNils Liedholm was a Swedish football midfielder and coach. Il Barone , as he is affectionately known in Italy, was renowned for being part of Sweden's "Gre-No-Li" trio of strikers along with Gunnar Gren and Gunnar Nordahl at A.C. Milan and the Swedish national team...
. In the qualification for the 1950 World Cup he scored in December 1949 the winning goal in the 114th minute of the decisive match against France.
Together with his brother
Zlatko Čajkovski he was in the side that won its
1950 FIFA World CupThe 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July, was the fourth FIFA World Cup. It was the first World Cup since 1938, the planned 1942 and 1946 competitions having been canceled owing to World War II...
matches against Switzerland and Mexico, to which he contributed a goal. However, a 0-2 defeat against hosts and eventual runners up Brazil put an end to the Yugoslav campaign.
On club level he played from 1942 for
HAŠK ZagrebHAŠK Mladost is an academic sports society from Zagreb, Croatia, sponsored by the University of Zagreb.Clubs named Mladost exist in athletics, field hockey, judo, basketball, bowling on ice and asphalt, fencing, volleyball, swimming, rugby, synchronised swimming, skiing, ice-hockey, ice skating,...
, and after the dissolution of the club from 1945 onward for
Dinamo ZagrebGNK Dinamo Zagreb, commonly referred to as Dinamo Zagreb , or by their nickname Modri are a Croatian football club based in Zagreb. They play their home matches at Stadion Maksimir. They are the most successful club in Croatian football, having won thirteen Croatian championship titles, ten...
. With Dinamo he won the championship titles of 1950 and 1954 as well as the 1951 cup tournament. In 1956 he joined the German first division club Werder Bremen for two seasons. According to some sources he was amongst the ranks of 1. FC Nuremberg in the season 1958/59. In 1959/60 he was player manager of the northern Bavarian third division side
1. FC LichtenfelsThe 1. FC Lichtenfels is a German association football club from the city of Lichtenfels, Bavaria.-History:Formed in 1906, the club did not rise to prominence till after the Second World War, when it earned promotion to the tier-two Landesliga Bayern in 1946...
which he led to the Bavarian amateur championship.
Later he was a coach for the German second division clubs SpVgg Fürth and
Borussia NeunkirchenBorussia VfB Neunkirchen is a German association football club based in Neunkirchen, Saarland. The club SC Borussia Neunkirchen was founded out of the 1907 merger of FC 1905 Borussia and SC Neunkirchen.-History:...
. He led Borussia into the
BundesligaThe Fußball-Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of Germany's football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Bundesliga...
, however he had to face relegation after one season. From 1971 he was at the helm of the third division club
SSV Ulm 1846SSV Ulm 1846 is a German association football club from Ulm, Baden-Württemberg and is one of the country's largest and oldest sports clubs with over 12,000 members in more than twenty different departments. The modern-day club was formed out of 5 May 1970 merger of TSG Ulm 1846 and 1...
, winning the division two times, albeit failing to achieve promotion. In the first half of the season 1974/75 he managed VfR Heilbronn and in the second half Wacker 04 Berlin, both in the second division.
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