Nogometni klub Zadar (English: Football Club Zadar), commonly referred to as NK Zadar or simply Zadar, was a Croatian football club based in Zadar, a city on the Adriatic coast, best known for playing in the top flight of Croatian football for almost twenty years.[1]
The first football club in Zadar was established in 1876 and was named AC Dalmazia. The club played mostly in Italian leagues until the city annexation to Yugoslavia in 1945. On 26 April 1945, a new club named Fiskulturno društvo Zadar was founded, with departments of football, basketball and athletics. On 9 February 1949, the football department was spun off as NK Zadar.[2]
Zadar played in the Yugoslav Second League on a number of occasions, most recently in 1986.
In 1992, as Zadarkomerc the club was a founding member of the Croatian First League. Since 2001, the club has officially been called NK Zadar.
The club's greatest success in the Croatian Football Cup was achieved in season 1995–96, when they lost in the semi-final against Croatia Zagreb.[3]
NK Zadar played in the top tier from 1992 to 1999, from 2001 to 2005, and from 2007 to 2015. Most recently, the club has been experiencing financial difficulties, and after two seasons spent in the Croatian Third League – South (2016–17, 2017–18), the club was promoted to the Croatian Second League. After a mid-table finish in 2018–19, Zadar were administratively relegated to the Third League. As of June 2019, the club had hired an attorney to appeal against their relegation.[4]
On 20 July 2020 it was announced that NK Zadar had dissolved because of bankruptcy. A new team, HNK Zadar, was announced as its formal successor.
NK Zadar's home stadium is the Stanovi with a capacity of 3,858 persons.[5]
The club's supporters are known as the Tornado Zadar.
Key
Top scorer shown in bold when he was also top scorer for the division.
To appear in this section a player must have:
Years in brackets indicate their spells at the club.
Jakov Surać (1992–1998, 2001–2016)[6] Fahrudin Šehić (1992–1999)[7] Zvonimir Jurić (1994–2005)[8] Dalibor Zebić (1996–1999, 2001–2005)[9] Luka Modrić (1996–2001; youth team)
Dragan Blatnjak (2001–2003) Danijel Subašić (youth team until 2003; senior team 2003–2009) Josip Bilaver (2003–2017)[10] Želimir Terkeš (2004–2011, 2012–2013, 2014–2018)[11] Dragan Župan (2005–2006, 2006–2009, 2012–2013, 2016–2020) Šime Vrsaljko (youth team until 2006)Note: For a complete list of NK Zadar players, see Category:NK Zadar players.
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Ante Čačić (1989–1991) Goran Krešimir Vidov (1992) Petar Zrilić (1992) Ivica Matković (1992–1993) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 1993) Ivan Gudelj (1993) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 1993) Luka Bonačić (1994) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 1994) Tomislav Bašić (1994) Josip Bajlo (1994–1995) Stanko Mršić (1995–1996) Ante Čačić (1996–1997) Ivan Katalinić (1997–1998) Boris Tičić (1998) Josip Skoblar (1998) Josip Bajlo (1999) Nikica Cukrov (1999–2000) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 2000) Mladen Vranković (2000) Siniša Jalić (2000–2001) Miodrag Paunović (2001) Stanko Mršić (2001–2002) Vjeran Simunić (2002–2003) Stanko Mršić (2003–2005) Vjeran Simunić (2005) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 2005) Milo Nižetić (2005) Jakov Pinčić (interim; 2005) Predrag Jurić (2005–2006) Dalibor Zebić (2006–2008) Zvonimir Jurić (interim; 2008) Ivica Datković (2008) Dalibor Zebić (2008–2012) Ferdo Milin (2012–2014) Zvonimir Jurić (interim; 2014) Miroslav Blažević (2014–2015) Igor Štimac (2015) Zvonimir Jurić (interim; 2015) Josip Butić (2015–2017) Ivan Pudar (2017) Leopold Burčul (2017) Vjeran Simunić (2017–2018) Dragan Blatnjak (2018) Krešimir Sunara (2018–2019) Mislav Karoglan (2019) Marko Pinčić (2019–2020)