Vjeran Simunić is Croatian professional football manager and former player who is the manager of Treća HNL club Zagora Unešić. He holds the Croatian record for number of managed teams. Zagora is Simunić's 36th club.
Playing career
Simunić started his playing career in Hajduk Split in the 70s. He didn't get too many chances in Hajduk as the competition was very big at the time. After Hajduk, his next station was NK Šibenik, then NK Dinamo Vinkovci and NK Zagreb, where he spent most of the playing career. In 1982, he made transfer to Sporting Lisabon. After one season he moved to Japan. He was first European player to play in Japan. The club was Tokyo Verdy. After two more challenges in Italia, he returned to native country. He finished his playing career in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in NK Posušje.
Managerial career
Simunić started his rich managerial career in Lipik, in 1994. Then he changed a couple of Croatian clubs before moving to Bahrain. However, he couldn't stay too much abroad, and he returned to Croatia, starting impressive row of 13 Croatian clubs, interrupted by 3 Bosnian clubs, in 8 years. He said that his mission is to improve table situation of every club he takes, and in most cases he did that. That's why he had so many offers. Searching for new challenge, he moved to Asia, this time Brunei. He managed club DPMM, soon after his good results with that club made him coach of Brunei. He was very popular, had lot of fans in country and even got Happy Birthday song chanted by fans during one match. But, he suddenly returned to Croatia, and took manager chair of NK Imotski, where he stayed for only one month. Then he took NK Mosor once again, but, not surprisingly, left that club also, and after one half-season he took Croatia second division club NK Međimurje, at the start of 2010/11 season. He returned to coach Brunei's only professional club DPMM FC in 2012 after FIFA allowed DPMM FC to rejoin S.League after 20 months of suspension due to government interference in Football Association of Brunei Darussalam. Simunić lead Brunei DPMM FC to a successful season in 2012 S.League as he guided them to win 2012 Singapore League Cup and finished second in the 2012 S.League after two seasons without competitive football. Simunić was named as Coach of the Year at S.League Awards Night for his achievement in 2012 S.League. In January 2013, Simunić was appointed as Brunei national football teamhead coach. On 16 September 2014 Simunić was appointed as head coach and technical director of Perak FA on a two-year contract, but after only two months he were replaced with M. Karathu before the season even started. Simunic were reassigned to youth development academy of Perak FA. Eventually however, in August 2015 he were reappointed as head coach of Perak after Karathu were relieved of his position in July 2015 due to poor performances of Perak in the league. He was released by Perak at the end of unsuccessful Malaysia Cup 2015 campaign, and subsequently joined another Malaysian team, Sabah FA on December the same year. He only hold the post as head coach of Sabah until June 2016, when he stepped down following unsatisfactory performances by the team during his tenure. After Sabah, Simunić returned to manage Zadar. After Zadar, he managed Solin, Bosnian club Vitez and since 2019, has been managing Zagora Unešić.
Personal life
Simunić is married, and has two sons and one granddaughter and grandson. He speaks a few foreign languages – Spanish, German, Italian and English particularly well. An interesting fact is that he also finished college.
