Slavoljub Muslin

Serbian footballer

Slavoljub Muslin (, ; born 15 June 1953) is a Serbian football manager and former player. Muslin began his head coaching career in 1988 and has since had stints in France, Morocco, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belgium, Cyprus, Belarus, Russia and Saudi Arabia. As a player, he played as a defender for several clubs, the most important being Red Star Belgrade and later Lille OSC. Muslin qualified for the 2018 World Cup with the Serbia national team although he was sacked before the final tournament.

Born to Croatian father Duje (from Split) and Serbian mother Danica (from Kragujevac), Slavoljub Muslin was born and raised in Belgrade, where he started playing football with OFK Beograd, continuing on in BASK, and FK Rad before transferring to Red Star Belgrade. Muslin was a defensive stalwart for Red Star Belgrade in the 1970s. Throughout his six years at the Marakana he played alongside some of the club's biggest stars such as Dragan Džajić, Vladislav Bogićević, Jovan Aćimović, Vladimir Petrović and Dušan Savić. He won three championship titles with Red Star and finished as runner up in the UEFA Cup in 1978 79 losing in the final to Borussia Mönchengladbach. In 1981, he moved on to Lille OSC, then to Stade Brestois 29 and finished his playing career with SM Caen.

Muslin began coaching in 1988 at the club where he spent some playing years earlier – Stade Brestois 29 – staying there until 1992. For the last two years of his tenure he had David Ginola in the squad. Muslin spent the next three seasons at Pau FC before moving on to Girondins de Bordeaux in summer 1995. With a potent squad of quality up and coming players like Bixente Lizarazu, Christophe Dugarry as well as superstar in the making Zinedine Zidane, Muslin led the team on a great run in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup ensuring progression to the quarterfinals before winter break 1995–96. He was sacked during spring 1996 due to poor domestic league form, which meant that he didn't get to lead the team in the UEFA Cup quarterfinals where the Girondins eliminated the favourites AC Milan and later made it to the final where they lost to a Bayern Munich team featuring the likes of Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Oliver Kahn, Markus Babbel, etc. RC Lens became Muslin's home in the summer of 1996. He coached the team in 1996–97 season before getting the axe on 11 March 1997. He went to Le Mans UC72 in the summer of 1997. He changed clubs during the 1998–99 season, moving to coaching the Moroccan side Raja Casablanca.

Muslin took over the reins of his old club Red Star Belgrade on 20 September 1999 in difficult circumstances after Miloljub Ostojić was sacked because of poor league form and a 1–0 first leg "home" loss (the match being played in Sofia due to an air traffic embargo imposed on FR Yugoslavia following the NATO bombing that ended a couple of months earlier) to Montpellier HSC in the UEFA Cup first round. Though he couldn't lead his squad past the French team in the second leg (his first match in charge), Muslin won the domestic double (league and cup) at the end of the season in impressive fashion. He won the league again next season, but lost in the cup final to bitter rivals FK Partizan. He resigned from his post on 30 September 2001, six weeks into the 2001–02 league season. The specific reason was never given, but it is widely believed it had to do with the ongoing simmering row with striker Mihajlo Pjanović that came to a head during the Champions League 3rd round qualifying tie when Muslin dropped the 24 year old forward and Red Star ended up losing 0–3 to Bayer Leverkusen. Muslin was not without a job for too long as in late March 2002 Levski Sofia sacked their coach Rüdiger Abramczik mid season and offered the job to the Serbian who promptly steered the team to the league and cup double in May. He was sacked in April 2003 as Levski was trailing the leaders by 8 points in the domestic league. The team went on to win the National Cup under the management of Georgi Todorov. In June 2003, Red Star came calling again after two seasons under coach Zoran Filipović. By the following spring Muslin brought his second domestic double to the club as a coach. The split from Red Star was again full of controversy. After winning the title, Muslin reportedly wanted more say in the club's transfer policy, essentially calling for his coaching role to be expanded into what club managers in England do. Red Star president Dragan Džajić would have none of it and a huge row erupted. At one point, Džajić – usually calm and collected – exploded in the media, calling Muslin a "piece of garbage." His departure came after league matchday 17 with Metalurh occupying the 3rd spot in Vyscha Liha. But after the end of the first part of 2014 15 season, he was sacked for unsatisfactory results. Muslin was announced as a new head coach of Standard Liège on 5 June 2015. His departure was announced on 28 August 2015.

Muslin became Serbia manager on 5 May 2016. During his tenure, Serbia finished top of their 2018 World Cup qualifying group ahead of the Republic of Ireland, thus qualifying for a major competitive tournament after eight years. Despite this, he was sacked in October 2017.

Most recently, Muslin coached Al Fayha of the Saudi Professional League.

His son Marko is also a professional footballer.