Predrag Pažin

Predrag Pažin (Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic: Предраг Пажин; born 14 March 1973) is a former footballer who played as a defender. Born in Yugoslavia, he represented Bulgaria internationally.

Club career He signed his first professional contract with Sutjeska from Nikšić, where he played from 1991 to 1993. Then, until 1995, he played for Rudar from Pljevlja. When in January he moved to Partizan. While he was playing for Partizan, he had an incident with Mateja Kežman during the match that Partizan played against Lazio. After one unsuccessful attack, Pažin blamed Kežman, to which he responded with insults, which caused Pažin to hit him. With Partizan, he was three times the champion of Yugoslavia and once the cup winner. When NATO bombed FR Yugoslavia in 1999, the championship was interrupted, Pažin was out of contract and, in May of the same year, he went to Werder Bremen for a ten-day trial.

He did not sign a contract with Werder, but he received an invitation from Ljupko Petrović, the coach of Levski Sofia at the time. With Levski, he won the title and the Bulgarian Cup, and was declared the best foreign player. He spent two seasons in Bulgaria during which he was offered citizenship and a chance to play for the country's national team - both of which he took. However, he was suddenly sold to Turkish side Kocaelispor, to which he moved in 2001. He won the cup in Turkey, but did not stay there long, so the following year he returned to Bulgaria, where he played for Spartak Pleven.

In the same year, he went to China, where he played for Beijing Guoan, coached by Ljupko Petrović. After China, in 2003 he moved to the Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk, for which he would play until 2005. He won the Ukrainian Cup with Shakhtar in 2004. He returned to China again in 2005, where he played for Shandong Luneng until 2007. The following year, he won the championship and the Cup of China. In the AFC Champions League match, which Shandong played against Al-Ittihad, Pažin was accused of spitting at the referee for which he was punished. The last club he played for was Lokomotiv Mezdra, from 2008 to 2010, where he ended his playing career.

International career Pažin made his debut for Bulgaria in an August 2000 friendly match against Belgium in Sofia and has earned a total of 31 caps, scoring no goals. He was part of the Bulgarian 2004 European Football Championship team, which was eliminated in the first round, finishing bottom of Group C, having finished top of Qualifying Group 8 in the pre-tournament phase. His final international was against Italy at that tournament in Portugal. Pažin is the most capped non-Bulgarian-born player to appear for the national side.

Honours Partizan First League of FR Yugoslavia: 1996, 1997, 1999 FR Yugoslavia Cup: 1998 Levski Sofia Bulgarian A PFG: 2000 Bulgarian Cup: 2000 Kocaelispor Turkish Cup: 2002 Shakhtar Donetsk Ukrainian Premier League: 2005 Ukrainian Cup: 2004 Shandong Luneng Chinese Super League: 2006 Chinese FA Cup: 2006