"The king of dribbling," the second Red Star's Star, right behind Rajko Mitić, player on the national team when Yugoslavia became the Olympic Champion, the fourth team in the world and the second in Europe. He won seven National Championships and five Cups wearing the Red Star uniform (he played for the team 470 times). Šeki has a positive score in the matches played against Partizan, and this is particularly stressed, because he himself considered these games to be the most important of his career. He played 41 games on the national team and scored six goals. As a coach, he won the Cup Double with the Red Star team. The Belgrade team from Marakana, became the champion of Europe and the world, just a year after he handed them over to his heir. Šeki was always the center of attention. He likes people to talk about him, there are many interesting facts and anecdotes to tell, it is impossible to list them all, so we decided to pass on some of “maestro’s” contemplations and experiences which he exclusively recently told a journalist of our football club.
The living legend of Serbian football, tells the story of his life, talks about missed opportunities, relationship with his parents, women, bars, the players today, and the desire to visit Las Vegas, without mincing words, as usual.
This year it’s been 65 years since the foundation of Red Star, a club that has seen come and go thousands of elite athletes, and each one of them contributed to the army of fans proudly pronouncing their names by setting an example on and off the field.
However, there are people who were destined to succeed, persons who has it written in the stars to become successful and popular, regardless of the work they choose to do. To accomplish such a thing you need to be very charming, to be a sir and a gentleman, to have other people enjoy your company, to be surrounded by beautiful women and you also need to have something that makes you unique and makes you stand out among others.
Honors to everyone else, but the mere mention of the name Dragoslav Šekularac, the Red Star’s second Star excites curiosity in all of us, and the desire to find out what it is that Šeki told us, what he advised us, what he did that made us laugh. Although in ill health, he told us some of the little secrets of the great masters, and tried to explain his uniqueness with a smile on his face and a cheerful spirit.
- I owe a lot to Red Star, it has influenced my character. At the club I learned that I needed to shave every day, that I needed to be clean and smell good, I learned not to sip my soup, I learned to behave around men and around women - starts Šeki. He came to the club at a very young age, and immediately stood out as an extraordinary talent. Although his father, who had pushed him towards studying, was opposed to football, Dragoslav had it his way, as he always did throughout his life. Many older and well recognized players awaited him in Red Star, but it was only an additional motive for him to prove himself.
- I remember a match: I have the ball, and I "call out" Branko Stanković and throw the ball to the other side, and make a mistake. At half-time he came up to me, he slapped me really hard and I cried. At the next practice, the coach puts us one in front of each other, and he doesn’t even touch the ball. Later, when he became a coach, he always advised me to play as I did against him that day. And who knows if it would have accomplished anything hadn’t Red Star gone on a tour across America to earn money, and we, the second team-selection, remained in Belgrade. I took advantage of that opportunity as much as I could, and all the city of Belgrade was talking about a new kid, who played great football, and so, in the first match two thousand people came to see me, and in the second match five thousand, and the third ten thousand people – tells one of our best football players, vividly depicting the story. He doesn’t talk about the days of his youth with melancholy, although the times were completely different than nowadays, what’s more, he says that the best time is always now and that he has no regrets, even though he knows that he made some mistakes in life.
- Maybe I could’ve provided more for my future, but I just never cared. In Belgrade, there were five important taverns, if you didn’t go there you were no one, there were five girls, and if you didn’t date them you were a nobody. I never had money on my mind after a game, I only thought about stopping at the Madera tavern and have everyone see me there. Sometimes I’d go home from the stadium, but then something’d stir up inside me, and I’d get dressed and head downtown for a short while, just to be seen. None of today’s jeeps can be compared to the popularity of my Vespa, because there are so many jeeps nowadays, and at that time, if I parked my bike outside the cinema, a bigger crowed would round up around it than at the box office.
Bad grades at school gave him some advantages and some disadvantages. On the one hand, he got regularly beaten up by his Dad, but on the other hand, if he had had better grades maybe he wouldn’t have met his wife, who was his high-school sweet-heart. He loved many women throughout his life, and he is in love now, but he never loved two women at the same time.
- I was a junior at high school when my wife was a freshman, then I did the junior class again and she was a sophomore, and then finally we went to the same junior class, we fell in love and got married. The times were different, we didn’t chase money, we all belonged to the "middle class", while today, someone has a good car, and millions, and the others don’t, so of course there’s envy- the master says, adding that he was also very stubborn, and that he always had to have everything his way.
- I have already mentioned that my father wasn’t interested in football and he thought I was just wasting my time. Later, when I put on the national uniform as well, he got invited to a game by some friends. He accepted, and I got everyone their ticket, except for him, I didn’t want to get him a ticket on purpose. He didn’t understand the first thing about football, they tried to explain him what “out” meant, what “corner” was, but after watching his second game, he came home and asked me: "Tell me, why is it that you dribble so much?"
Šeki’s mentality is quite well-known, he always fought for truth and justice, not thinking about the consequences, he was led by his heart, not his mind, and because of that, he got suspended after a game in Niš for hitting the referee in his face.
- The worst thing is I didn’t even want to play that game, but I went to Niš to see a boxing match. But no one can escape their destiny. Nine out of ten times I would’ve restrained myself, but this time I couldn’t make it.
Saying something about his love for Red Star would be a waste of words, because there is no place he hasn’t been to, but he always came back to Marakana. He was envied by many who didn’t know him, unconditionally and unreservedly loved by all who had the honor of being his friends, he used bank-notes to clean his shoes, he told everyone the truth straight into their face ... He still does it, but in a different way.
- I claim to be more popular than any other domestic footballers. Here, let's take a walk from the Law School to Terazije square, just me and the most popular local player, and see that will get recognized by more people. I have never been a slave to anything in my life. Had I had someone to control my whims, I would have given them eighty percent of my earnings and I would still be a multimillionaire. A friend of mine put it nicely: "You legs were too smart for such a stupid head." And as far as the story of me rubbing my shoes with banknotes in front of the hotel "Metropol" is concerned, it's my character, I wanted to show everyone that I had a lot, but now I admit that I put that money back in my pocket, it was all just a joke, a trick, I never liked feeling bored, I've always played various jokes on everybody, that's me. I'm still young in spirit, I hang out with the young, my oldest friend is thirty-five years old. I'm sick, my back hurts, my legs as well, it’s hard for me to move around, I have a weak heart, and so I don’t need to hang out with people alike and listen to their problems, no way, I do not even let my grandchildren call me Grandpa, they call me Lion - states grandmaster, as sincere as ever. However, the one thing that he thought he wouldn’t ever live to see, happened literally in front of his house: he got hit by an arrogant taxi driver, who later argued that he hadn’t recognized that it was Dragoslav Šekularac he was hitting. - I couldn’t believe that there were people at the prime of their strength, who would beat an elderly man, and for no reason, nothing at all. He later apologized, moved out of town, may the act do him honor, I deliberately did not sue, so that no one could say I wanted to take the money from him thanks to my fame and name.
He considers the current situation at the club from a fan’s point of view, he admire Lukić and the others who took over the “hot potato”, that is the huge debt, the club falling in pieces, started out from below zero, and for all those reasons he says he will never and can never criticize them. He knows that the leadership of Red Star is made up of true Red Star devotees and he doesn’t worry about the future.
- I admire them. It isn’t at all easy, they are young, they love the club, they will make it, I have no doubts-states Šekularac convinced that a brighter future awaits the club. Talking about his own plans he says:
- I can hardly walk; my hands, my feet, my back, my heart... But believe it or not, I swear to you, I am about to die, and I am thinking about finding a way of stealing ten thousand dollars and going to Las Vegas, for at least ten days. That’s me, I can’t sit still, I have excessive energy and I always try to make the best use of it – said the maestro, ending his story. Maestro, the professor, the doctor of football Dragoslav Šekularac, who (and may it not be forgotten!) was the first one to began creating the first generation of champions from Bari and Tokyo, and then Ljupko Petrović followed him on that path and even later Vladica Popović, and later ...