This morning, after a short illness, the legendary football player OF Hajduk and the winner of the Golden Olympic medal Zvonko Bego died. His funeral will take place on Thursday, August 16 at 16:15 at Lovrinac cemetery in Split, and commemoration on the same day at Poljud stadium, at 11:00.
Being a member of a team that has become the Olympic winner is the most important success one can achieve in sport. All the World and European titles are falling in front of the Olympic title. Zvonko Bego had the honor of being a member of the winning team at the Olympics.
Zvonko Bego was born in Split on December 19, 1940. He was a left-wing striker, a Yugoslav international. Of the three brothers Bego (Boran, Ivo and Zvonko) who all played forHajduk, the youngest Zvonko was the most successful one.
He joined early Hajduk's senior team, in 1957 in Zagreb, in the Cup match against Lokomotiva when Hajduk won 3:1. Zvonko often pointed out his debut in the white jersey: "My dream of joining the big team where the most famous after-war players played came true all of a sudden, and as the minutes were passing, the trembles disappeared. Frane Matošić, on my tremendous satisfaction, after the match said I was playing well. It was the biggest and most important award for me because such recognition of a great footballer and expert as was Frane Matošić, that meant really a lot to me then".
Bego liked to remember his first goal against Vojvodina in Split on March 9, 1958 in a 1:0 win. From 1957 to 1967 when he left Split, Zvonko played 375 games for Hajduk and scored 173 goals. In the season 1966/67, in which Hajduk won the first Cup of Yugoslavia, he played for Hajduk in the first half of the season. Then he played for Bayern in Germany, then in Dutch Twente. He continued in Bayer from Leverkusen, then in Salzburg, to return home in 1971.
For A team of Yugoslavia he played 6 times and scored 2 goals. He debuted in Zagreb on November 19, 1961 in a friendly match against Austria (2:1), and he said goodbye to the national team in Tel Aviv on December 14, 1961 in a friendly match against Israel (2:0 ).
He was a participant of the Olympics in 1960 in Rome when the Yugoslav national team won the Olympic football tournament.
Zvonko Bego, along with Kozlina, Anković and Žanetić, was the only footballer of Hajduk, who was a member of a team of the Olympic winners. It is the sport's dream of every athlete, but few reach it. Zvonko Bego had that honor.
In the period when Hajduk experienced the toughest years since its foundation, and when the threat of relegation lasted for year, Zvonko Bego had several times received the offers of then leading Yugoslav clubs to move to their teams. The most persistent was the Belgrade Partizan, however, love for Hajduk and its native Split was more important to Zvonko and his brothers than all the millions. Only when Hajduk recovered and came close to winning the first Cup in its history, Zvonko Bego went on. But not in a rival club, uinstead he went abroad. He was awarded Hajduk Golden Captain's Band.
