Zoltán Kovács (born Zoltán Kovac, 16 October 1954) is a Croatian-born Hungarian former footballer and manager. He is the current technical director of APOEL's youth academies. Biography Kovac was born in Osijek, Croatia, back then part of SFR Yugoslavia, and emigrated in 1956 with his Hungarian father and Croatian mother to Belgium. Early career He started his football career in the youth teams at the club RAA Louvière in Belgium and captained the U 16. Then he played for one year in the second team and quickly became one of the biggest hopes of the club which meanwhile reached the second national division. He was called back to the U 20 to reinforce the team at the end of the season and won the title of Belgian Champion with them. Professional career He then signed a three-years contract with his club and took part in the accession to the first National Division through play-offs. So, he played for ten years as a semi-professional player as central defender, working meanwhile as an English and Dutch teacher. International career Kovács played for two years with the Hungary national under-18 football team. Education As a student at university Kovac had to make a choice between a professional football career and his studies. Coaching career At the age of 35 he had to stop his football career because of an injury at his Achilles heel. The club manager immediately proposed him to coach the U 14 and he got much success with the team. That's how he became passionately fond of youth formation and he accumulated the champion titles with his U 12, U 14, U 16 and U 20 teams. His coaching career advanced when Franky Vercauteren, ex national coach, asked him to coach the U 20 at KV Mechelen: once again he became champion with his team. He was called back to La Louvière to coach the national U 19 and won the national play-offs. His experience and results as a youth formator, post formator and as a pedagogue shoot him to the job of Formation Technical Director at La Louvière in 1st division. During those four years he completely reorganized the club and its formation system: so, he shot most of the 10 youth teams among the first three in each national championship. Six La Louvière players were preselected for the national teams and two of them played with the national