Milija Brkić

Milija Brkić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милија Бркић; born 23 October 1954) is a Serbian retired professional footballer who played from the early 1970s to early 1990s. After retiring he served as a manager for numerous different clubs but is currently unattached to a team.

Born in Bor, Serbia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Brkić started playing with his hometown club Bor, and made his senior debut in 1977.

Brkić played from 1978 to 1983 in FK Zemun spending several seasons in Yugoslav First League appearing in games against best clubs in  Yugoslavia, such as FK Partizan, Red Star, Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split, Vojvodina, among others. He also played for six years at Bor in the second tier football league of Yugoslavia.

Milija Brkić played four matches for Yugoslavia at the Nehru Cup in 1982. The coach of that team was the legendary Miljan Miljanić, a former manager of Real Madrid.

Brkić began his managerial career in 1991 for his parent club Bor, spending several years as a coach of the first team in the Yugoslav Second League. He was also a coach of Zemun in First League of Serbia and Montenegro. For his second term, he replaced Dragan Lacmanović.

Because he made good results with clubs in Serbia, Milija Brkić was a very important person and coach in the career development of several national team and international players from Serbia. He was very important in the progress of Nenad Milijaš. Milija Brkić was his coach for the youth and senior team of First League of Serbia and Montenegro club Zemun. Milijaš after that had a very successful international career, playing for the English Premier league team Wolverhampton Wanderers, Serbian champion Red Star, Manisaspor in Turkey, and currently for the Hebei Zhongji, China League One club. Milijaš also had a successful national team career, playing for the Serbia national football team, and was a member of the squad in the World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

Brkić also coached Brana Ilić, a Serbian striker, who has been playing in the biggest domestic clubs like Partizan and Vojvodina. He is currently a member of PAS Giannina, a top level team in Greece. Another one of his “best products” who was developed in the years he was coached by Brkić was Ilija Stolica, a former striker from Serbia, with an impressive international career in top level clubs from Belgium, Spain, Ukraine, Greece and the United States.

In 2010 Brkić came back to his original club, Bor, trying to help his former club return to the old way of success. Unfortunately, bad finance situations in the club impacted their season, making it very turbulent.

After a few years of break, Brkić decided to accept an offer to manage Budućnost, from Arilje, where he lived, and to help them to achieve placement in the Drina Zone League. They succeeded, without a single recorded loss in season. However, Brkić declined to extend his contract with the club.