Miljan Miljanić (; 4 May 1930 – 13 January 2012) was a Yugoslav and Serbian football player, coach and administrator, who played as a defender. Born in Bitola, Vardar Banovina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, to a family originating from the Banjani clan in the Nikšić municipality in Montenegro, Miljanić spent the first years of his life in what would later become SR Macedonia within SFR Yugoslavia and eventually present day North Macedonia. During his colourful career, Miljanić coached Red Star Belgrade (won 10 trophies), Real Madrid (won back-to-back La Liga titles, including a League/Cup double in the 1974–75 season), Valencia CF (disappointing stint that lasted three quarters of the 1982–83 season when he got sacked with the team in 17th place in the league), and the Yugoslav national side, of which he was a head coach in the 1974 and 1982 World Cups. He is equally known as the all-powerful president of the Football Association of FR Yugoslavia (FSJ), a post he occupied for years before leaving in 2001. His influence on the game of football in Yugoslavia is huge as an entire generation of coaches including Ćiro Blažević, Ivica Osim, Toza Veselinović, etc. came up under his tutelage. In addition to admirers, Miljanić has his share of detractors who feel his trademark cautious and defensive tactics, as well as reliance on older players, contributed to the Yugoslav national team's poor results and unattractive play throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, for his contributions to association football, Miljanić became the recipient of the FIFA Order of Merit — the highest honour awarded by FIFA. Early life Miljanić was born in 1930 in Bitola, a town his geometer father Akim Miljanić had moved the family to two years earlier in 1928 after finding employment there. Previously, in 1922, Akim had arrived to Belgrade from Montenegro's Banjani region in order to study at the newly opened Geodesy School. The family also consisted of mother Zorka and sisters Mira and Nada. In 1941, with Nazi Germany invading, conquering, and dismembering Kingdom of Yugoslavia into territories administered by newly established local collaborationist regimes or neighbouring Axis powers states, the Miljanićs were forced into fleeing Bitola by the occupying Bulgarian force that had been handed the territory of Vardar Banovina by the Nazis. The fleeing family first settled in the town of Jagodina followed by relocating to Kragujevac, a city reeling from the October 1941