Name: Danilo Popivoda
Nickname: "Poppi"



Country: Yugoslavia | Montenegro
Club: NK Olimpija Ljubljana (1965-1975) | Eintracht Braunschweig (1975-1981)
Position: *WF, CF, SS, SMF
Side: RF/BS (mostly right)
Age: 27-31 years (01/05/1947)

Height: 173 cm
Weight: 74 kg

Attack: 84
Defence: 52
Balance: 82
Stamina: 86
Top Speed: 86
Acceleration: 90
Response: 84
Agility: 85
Dribble Accuracy: 84
Dribble Speed: 87
Short Pass Accuracy: 81
Short Pass Speed: 81
Long Pass Accuracy: 82
Long Pass Speed: 81
Shot Accuracy: 78
Shot Power: 78
Shot Technique: 79
Free Kick Accuracy: 73
Curling: 79
Header: 72
Jump: 78
Technique: 86
Aggression: 89
Mentality: 84
Goalkeeper Skills: 50
Team Work: 81

Injury Tolerance: B
Condition/Fitness: 7
Weak Foot Accuracy: 6
Weak Foot Frequency: 7
Consistency: 7
Growth type: Standard/Lasting

CARDS:
P04 - Darting Run
P05 - Mazing Run
P10 - Incisive Run
S05 - Speed Merchant
S06 - Outside Curve
S08 - Turning Skills


SPECIAL ABILITIES: Dribbling - Side - Outside

Attack/Defence Awareness Card: Attack-Minded


INFO:
A modern day forward who could easily play in today's game. Both a goal scorer and goal-fixer. Naturally fast, Popivoda ran 100 meters in 11,1 seconds..
Speed, great goalscoring abilities and feeling for space, very confident player with a strong character. Danilo Popivoda was the motor in Branko Zebec's team. He scored and made assists. He was rightly considered one of the best players in Bundesliga at one point in time and voted 2x the best foreigner in the league (in front of such names like Keegan and Simonsen!)

This man could put knots in the legs of his opponents. Danilo Popivoda, one of the first Yugoslav legionnaires in the Bundesliga, embodies Eintracht Braunschweig's golden 70s more than anyone else. He was a kind of football partisan, because just as Tito's freedom fighters once kept their most dangerous weapons hidden under their civilian clothes, Popivoda also surprised his opponents with sudden deceptive manoeuvres.

He made his debut in adult football in 1965 with the team Olimpija Ljubljana, in which he spent ten seasons, taking part in 226 championship matches and scoring 58 goals. Most of his time with Olimpija, he was a key player in the team's offensive line and became the top scorer in the Yugoslav championship in the 1973/74 season with 17 goals. Besides playing the centre-forward, he loved roaming on the right flank. Eintracht coach Branko Zebec and Eintracht sponsor Günter Mast had persuaded him to make this change. In Braunschweig he initially had the nickname "Popi nie da" because he was injured for some time after a foul in the Intertoto Cup game of Eintracht against Vojvodina Novi Sad at the beginning of the season. He didn't make his Bundesliga debut until Matchday 13. However, he soon became the crowd favourite and star of the Braunschweig team and made a significant contribution to the placings in 1976 (5th place) and 1977 (3rd place). From 1975 to 1981 he defended the colors of Eintracht (Braunschweig), where he played 126 Bundesliga matches and scored 30 goals. In 1981, Popivoda returned to his native Olympia, where he ended his career the following year due to an eye disease.

Popivoda played 3 matches for the Yugoslav youth team in which he scored 1 goal and 10 matches for the youth national team of Yugoslavia in which he scored 7 goals. On 14 June 1972, he made his official debut for the Yugoslav national team in the Brazilian Independence Cup match against Venezuela, which ended in 10-0, with Popivoda scoring his team's fifth goal. Later, Danilo played in four more games of the tournament and took 3rd place with the team. He was a member of the national team at the 1974 World Cup in Germany, where he was a reserve player, playing in only one game against the West Germany (0:2). However, in two years at the 1976 European Championships, Popivoda was a major player and played in both games of the tournament, but the Yugoslavs lost both games and finished in 4th place. His last appearance for the national team was in the qualifying tournament for the 1978 World Cup against the national team of Spain on November 30, 1977, in a match that ended in the defeat of the Yugoslavs with a score of 0:1. In total, during his career in the national team, which lasted 6 years, he played 20 matches, scoring 5 goals.

His teammates at E.Braunschweig said of him:

Bernd Franke:
"Nevertheless, he was not one to let the hard boarding of the defenders buy the edge. He knew how to defend himself, could be just as nickely and played his game consistently. "Poppi" was lively like no other, very fast, technically strong and often only separated from the ball with a foul. When I intercepted crosses or corners, I was able to throw the balls far forward to the right side, almost blindly. Popi then ran straight into the area, grabbed the ball and stormed forward at high speed to score a goal himself or set up the ball dangerously."

Dietmar Erler:
"For me, Popivoda is one of the best right wingers in the history of the Bundesliga, a category with Stan Libuda. In addition, in my opinion, "Poppi" is the best legionnaire who has ever played for Eintracht. He was fast, strong in dribbling and incredibly dangerous in front of goal. Explosive acceleration, powerful hooks, looking for every tackle. In the process, »Poppi« was able to hurt others just as much as he himself had to take it. And how he was hooked!"

Dietmar Zembski:
"In 1975, Danilo joined Eintracht with me. Two newcomers – one from Novisad, one from Bremen. Both of them were already advanced footballers – he was 27 at the time, I was 28 years old. I didn't see a better right-winger in his time than him. Poppi became a crowd favourite, was down-to-earth, straightforward and charming: I got to know football in a more sophisticated way through him, Branko Zebec and Alexander Ristic."

Danilo Popivoda was Slovenian, not from Montenegro

That's what I thought as well... However, in his interviews he clearly stated he was a Montenegrin and he even died in Bijela (a coastal village in the Boka bay in Montenegro) where he was living for a long time.

He ended up playing for Olimpija by pure luck, Danilo visited his brother in Ljubljana who was studying there and played a friendly game where he played well and was invited to train with Olimpija...

In 2017 he gave an interview saying that his only unfulfilled dream was not "playing for the national team of my country - Montengero"

Here are the links:
https://www.pobjeda.me/clanak/danilo-po ... balo-stici
https://reprezentacija.me/danilo-popivo ... rski-dres/
https://www.vijesti.me/sport/fudbal/565 ... ala-u-srcu