The latest instalment in the Forgotten Idols series looks at a man who was one of the most feared strikers in world football in the early 1990’s. Darko Pančev had the world at his feet in 1992, and could have chosen any club in Europe when he left Red Star Belgrade. Less than three years later, the player that he was had become nothing more than a distant memory.

Early Beginnings

Born in Skopje in 1965, he began his career at his hometown club FK Vardar. He made his full debut at the age of 17 at the back end of the 1982 – 83 season, and made an instant impression by scoring three times in his first four matches.

Much was expected the following season and Pančev didn’t disappoint, topping the Yugoslav First League scoring charts with 19 goals despite the fact that his club finished three points above the relegation zone. His form did not go unnoticed by Yugoslavia manager Todor Veselinović, who called the 18-year-old striker up to the squad in March 1984, but did not take him to the European Championship in France that summer.

Over the next four seasons, he hit a further 74 goals and ensured that Vardar consistently finished in the top half of the table, and even qualified for the UEFA Cup on one occasion. By 1988, it was clear that the club were not going to be able to keep hold of their prized asset for much longer. Pančev had gained a reputation as a natural predator in the penalty area, with his lightning quick reflexes ensuring that even loose balls would finish in the back of the net.

It was no surprise when both Red Star and Partizan came calling for his services, and it was the former who won the race for his signature, beating their bitter rivals to two players – Dejan Savicevic being the other. Both players would have to wait to make their debut, however, as they were called up for their mandatory stint in the Yugoslav People’s Army. Given that Partizan Belgrade have always been the military club of their country, it was probably no coincidence that their call-ups happened shortly before they were due to join their hated rivals.

Red Star

The military call-up meant that Pančev missed the entire 1988 – 89 season, unlike Savićević who was allowed to play in Red Star’s European matches and those played by the Yugoslav national team. Once his mandatory year was completed, however, he resumed his duties for his new club and showed that he had lost none of his predatory instincts. He topped the Yugoslav scoring charts with 25 goals as his new club won the title race at a canter.

Up until this point, Pančev had had a stop-start international career and his time with the army certainly played a part in this disruption. Now that he was free to concentrate on his football, it wasn’t long before he started scoring at international level. In November 1989, Pančev scored the winning goal against Cyprus which confirmed Yugoslavia as winners of their World Cup qualifying group.

When the tournament began the following summer, he scored twice against the United Arab Emirates to ensure that Yugoslavia made it to the knockout stages. They were eventually eliminated in the quarter-finals, losing on penalties to Argentina.

The 1990 – 91 season saw Red Star Belgrade effortlessly retain the league title, and they also won the European Cup. For Pančev, it was also a season of personal glory as he scored 40 times in all competitions, with his 34 league goals coming from just 32 appearances. He also scored the deciding penalty against Marseille, which meant that his club were Champions of Europe.

These exploits won him the European Golden Shoe award (named the Golden Boot in those days), the only Yugoslav player in history to achieve this feat. Oddly enough, he did not actually receive the award until 2006, after protests from Cyprus that one of their players had scored more. It took fifteen years to decide that Pančev should receive his award due to playing in a more competitive league.

At the time of Red Star’s triumph, the conflict in Yugoslavia had escalated to the point of no return. Clubs from all around Europe began to pick off the club’s players, although Pančev and Savićević did stay for the 1991 – 92 campaign, and Red Star won a third consecutive title. They were also crowned World Champions by beating Chilean side Colo Colo 3 – 0 in the 1991 Intercontinental Cup. Naturally, Pančev was among the scorers.

Losing half of their team, however, did impact the club where it came to retaining their European crown. This was the first season to include a group stage, showing the way forward for what would eventually become the Champions League.

There was a bizarre incident before Red Star’s match away to Panathinaikos, which saw Pančev detained by the Greek authorities for several hours before being allowed into the country. What transpired was that when completing the entry forms to gain admission into Greece, the striker had written his nationality as Macedonian. It certainly didn’t affect his confidence, however, as he scored both goals in a 2 – 0 victory in Athens.

The group stages of the competition were set so that the winner of each group would meet in the European Cup Final. Sampdoria finished two points ahead of Red Star, and would go on to face eventual winners Barcelona at Wembley. It signalled the end for Pančev’s time at the Marakana, and in the summer of 1992, he rejected overtures from Barcelona, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus to join Inter in a £7 million transfer. He left Yugoslavia with a record 168 goals from 243 league games, making him the second highest ever goalscorer in the Yugoslav First League.

Serie A and later career

The arrival of Darko Pančev at the San Siro was hugely anticipated. When that player has a reputation as the deadliest goalscorer in Europe, and is expected to be the catalyst at a sleeping giant who finished eighth in the league the previous season, that expectation becomes even more magnified. To top things off, the German World Cup-winning trio of Andreas Bhreme, Lothar Matthäus and Jurgen Klinnsmann had been sold in a massive squad overhaul.

Within a few games of the new season, it became clear that Pančev was struggling. He was one of several new attacking options that Inter had purchased over the summer, and the biggest hit of them all was Uruguayan international Rubén Sosa. Also added to the squad were Italy’s World Cup hero Savlatore “Toto” Schillachi, Russian attacking midfielder Igor Shalimov and German international Matthias Sammer.

Fitting so many new players into a new side was never going to be easy, but what happened to Pančev is a good example of why the manager, rather than the club president, should buy the players. Head coach Osvaldo Bagnoli was also a new summer arrival, and soon made it clear that he was not enamoured with the Macedonian striker. He wanted players who would run into the channels and chase lost causes. Anybody who had watched Darko Pančev would know that was not his game.

It wasn’t until January 1993 that he scored his first league goal for Inter, against Udinese, and it would be the only Serie A strike of his debut season. In contrast to his struggles, his new club had a good campaign as Inter finished second to qualify for the UEFA Cup. Pančev had only appeared in 12 league games, and there were rumours that he had once faked an illness to avoid sitting on the bench as his relationship with Bagnoli became fractured beyond repair. The man who had been known as “The Kobra” at Red Star was cruelly given the nickname “The Green Lizard” by his new club’s fans.

In the summer of 1993, Inter once again invested heavily in their squad by bringing in Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp from Ajax, but the club endured a season of mixed fortunes. They won the 1994 UEFA Cup, but finished 13th in Serie A just one point clear of the relegation zone.

The increased competition meant that Pančev found himself surplus to requirements, even when Bagnoli was replaced midway through the campaign. In January 1994, he was loaned to Bundesliga side VFB Leipzig scoring twice in ten league games, which was not enough to save them from relegation.

At the start of the 1994 – 95 season Ottavio Bianchi was installed as manager, who afforded Pančev a clean slate and brought him back into the first team fold. His faith was instantly repaid with two league goals in the early weeks of the season. Shortly after this, a succession of muscle injuries afflicted his season, which the striker later attributed to lack or regular playing time over the previous two seasons. This may also have attributed to the fact that he made just five appearances for the newly established Macedonia national team, scoring once.

In July 1995, the player who had been one of the most feared strikers in Europe just three years earlier was sold to German side Fortuna Dusseldorf for a cut price fee of just £375,000. After another injury hit campaign which saw him score just twice, he was given a free transfer to FC Sion of Switzerland. His luck did not change at the Swiss side, and he retired, aged 32, in 1997 following five goalless appearances.

Today he runs a café in his home town of Skopje, and had a brief spell as sporting director at his first club FK Vardar. In 2003, at the UEFA Golden Jubilee awards, Macedonia chose Pančev as their most outstanding player of the last 50 years.

Final Thought.

It’s quite easy to feel a bit of sympathy towards Darko Pančev. At Red Star he had been the most prolific striker in Europe, and he achieved this by the team playing to his strengths, something Inter clearly didn’t do. Bagnoli could point to the fact that he got the team to second in the table, behind only the great Milan side of that era, having finished mid-table the previous year. But maybe by deploying the Macedonian in his preferred role, he may have scored the goals that bridged the four point gap between the cross-city rivals. After all, being a penalty box predator was what made every major club in Europe want him in the first place.

Since his retirement, he has spoken at great length on many occasions about his time in Serie A, and it is clear that moving to Inter is something he regrets deeply. In one interview, he said: “In 1992 I was the best striker in Europe. I could have gone anywhere I wanted: Real, Barcelona, Manchester United. My career would have been much richer, in football terms and financially, if I had. And I was only one of the players whose career Inter ruined: think of Wim Jonk, Matthias Sammer and Igor Shalimov. Dennis Bergkamp left after two years, and he needed a year in England to find himself again.” There is a lot of truth in this statement, although Sammer can point to winning Euro ’96 and the Champions League a year later as proof that it merely stalled his career.

If he had gone to Barcelona, the prospect of him linking up with Stoichkov and Laudrup is a tantalising one. If he had gone to United, they might never have signed Eric Cantona. Some, however, might say that he just wasn’t up to the challenge of playing at a higher level on a weekly basis, and that the momentum built up at Red Star was merely carried into their European Cup triumph. It’s impossible to say for certain, but nobody who ever saw him play at his best would want to believe that.

The most likely explanation, however, is that Darko Pančev was just a great striker whose confidence took a nosedive and subsequently never recovered.