The last football romanticist

In 1962 the Yugoslav national team entered the World Championship in Chile as the 1960 Olympic winner from Rome. Yugoslavia was defeated in the first match by the Soviet Union (0-2), but then won the games against the double World Champion, Uruguay (2:0), and Colombia (5-0).

Taking the second position in the group, the Yugoslav national team entered the quarterfinals where it achieved a minimal, but significant victory over the German team (1-0). Czechoslovakia had more success in the semifinals (3-1), as well as the host, Chile, in the match for the third place (1-0), so Yugoslavia took the fourth position. A football genius, Dragoslav Sekularac (on the photo), player of the Red Star Belgrade team, and the Yugoslav national team, one of the best players in the Championship, was then introduced to the world.

The football star of Dragoslav Sekularac was, unfortunately, extinguished before it reached its peak. The player, usually called the football artist, and one of the few who evoked a time when players played for the viewers and not for the score, was, only a few months after the World Championship in Chile, punished and banned from playing for 18 months due to his hitting a referee during a Yugoslav league's match between Radnicki and Red Star. Football-lovers to this day remember, with sadness, these moments, which played a crucial role in the career of the last romanticist of the Yugoslav football.

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