Nenad Bjelica (; born 20 August 1971) is a Croatian professional football manager and former player who was most recently in charge of Prva HNL club Osijek. Club career Born in Osijek, Bjelica started playing for a local club, Metalac Olt, in the 1989–90 season. He quickly moved to NK Osijek and spent almost four seasons there, before moving abroad to Spain. Bjelica played for Albacete Balompié for four years, during which the team reached the Copa del Rey semi-final in the 1994–95 season. In 1996 he moved to Real Betis and was in the team that was the runner-up in the 1996–97 campaign. The next season, Bjelica spent at UD Las Palmas, but returned to Real Betis a year later. Due to injuries, he played very few games in this period, and would again spend a season at Las Palmas until the end of 1999. Bjelica then returned home to Osijek for two seasons and recovered his form, playing with the team in three stages of the UEFA Cup. He then moved to 1. FC Kaiserslautern in 2000, where he spent four seasons until semi-retiring top-tier football in 2004. During the 2004–05 season, Bjelica played for VfB Admira Wacker Mödling. After that, he played for the Austrian club FC Kärnten in the Second League before retiring on 30 June 2008. International career Bjelica made his debut for Croatia in a February 2001 friendly match against Austria and earned a total of 9 caps, scoring no goals. His final international was a June 2004 European Championship match against France in Portugal. He retired from the team in that year, at the same time the manager Otto Barić was replaced. Managerial career Bjelica began his coaching career on 15 September 2007 at FC Kärnten, as player-caretaker manager. On 1 July 2008, he signed a full managing contract, just a day after ending his playing career. Bjelica was the head coach of Lustenau 07 from March to December 2009, as well as of WAC St. Andrä from May 2010 to June 2013. Bjelica moved to Austria Wien on 17 June 2013 as their new head coach, and qualified for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League group stage, defeating the Croatian champion Dinamo Zagreb in the last round of qualification, with the club. Bjelica was sacked on 16 February 2014. As Austria Wien failed to qualify for the UEFA Europa League nonetheless at the