Jadran Lazić
Hajduk, 1973
digital print on archival paper
50 x 60 cm
open edition
signed and dated
Six out of six – my perfect score My “soccer career” both peaked and ended when the Yugoslav national team played in the World Cup qualifiers in 1973. I covered...
Six out of six – my perfect score
My “soccer career” both peaked and ended when the Yugoslav national team played in the World Cup qualifiers in 1973. I covered their preparations in my hometown of Split for Vjesnik and, when they went to Athens for a decisive game against Greece, I somehow managed to elbow my way onto the flight, too. Aboard the plane was also Slobo Bronzović, the then sales manager for Vjesnik in Dalmatia. When we arrived in Athens, – resourceful as I was – I finagled a stadium pass for him, too. I gave him one of my cameras, set it to automatic mode and told him: “Go and stand behind our goal and I’ll stand behind Greece’s goal. For the second half-time we’ll switch places. The moment you think they might score, start snapping!” In the end, Yugoslavia won 4:2. It was a nerve-wracking game. I was the only one with pictures of all six goals!
We flew to Zagreb late that evening and I went straight to Vjesnik’s photo lab. There was no one there, but – being my old man’s son – I developed the pictures myself for the morning editions of Vjesnik and Večernji list. They were the only papers with photos of all six goals.
I was asked later, “How could you possibly snap all six?” I replied, “Easy! I had a hunch every time and dashed from one end of the field to the other like crazy. That’s how.” The negatives have since been lost, but I found a copy of the papers from those days at the National and University Library and took pictures of my photos in them for my own archive.
From Jadran Lazić’s book 50 Years of Photography, Vol. 1, Zagreb 2021, p. 28.
My “soccer career” both peaked and ended when the Yugoslav national team played in the World Cup qualifiers in 1973. I covered their preparations in my hometown of Split for Vjesnik and, when they went to Athens for a decisive game against Greece, I somehow managed to elbow my way onto the flight, too. Aboard the plane was also Slobo Bronzović, the then sales manager for Vjesnik in Dalmatia. When we arrived in Athens, – resourceful as I was – I finagled a stadium pass for him, too. I gave him one of my cameras, set it to automatic mode and told him: “Go and stand behind our goal and I’ll stand behind Greece’s goal. For the second half-time we’ll switch places. The moment you think they might score, start snapping!” In the end, Yugoslavia won 4:2. It was a nerve-wracking game. I was the only one with pictures of all six goals!
We flew to Zagreb late that evening and I went straight to Vjesnik’s photo lab. There was no one there, but – being my old man’s son – I developed the pictures myself for the morning editions of Vjesnik and Večernji list. They were the only papers with photos of all six goals.
I was asked later, “How could you possibly snap all six?” I replied, “Easy! I had a hunch every time and dashed from one end of the field to the other like crazy. That’s how.” The negatives have since been lost, but I found a copy of the papers from those days at the National and University Library and took pictures of my photos in them for my own archive.
From Jadran Lazić’s book 50 Years of Photography, Vol. 1, Zagreb 2021, p. 28.
