Vladimir Beara - Yugoslavia
How good was Vladimir Beara? During his acceptance speech as the only goalkeeper to ever win the Ballon d’Or, Lev Yashin publicly declared Beara as the “greatest goaltender of all-time.” Chances are that statement was more a result of humility and respect on the part of Yashin than actual fact yet even still, that’s one hell of an endorsement!
Like Yashin, Beara spent most of his career on the eastern side of the iron curtain and for that reason, combined with the limitations of the period’s mass media, his professional highlights and displays of accomplishment went mostly unseen by the rest of the free world except for his participation in the international events such as the World Cup, Euro Cup and Olympics.
Domestically, Beara spent most of his time in his home country of Yugoslavia winning seven (7) league titles with two different teams over the course of thirteen (13) years.
In 1955, Beara was transferred from Hajduk Split to league rival Red Star Belgrade for reasons and circumstances that have never been fully understood. Some suggest the move was encouraged by Beara’s wife who wanted a change in scenery and others suspect it was the invisible hand of government officials who were mostly supporters of Red Star. In any event, what we do know is that in a great display of high-level eastern European finance maneuvering, Red Star was forced to sell their team bus in order to garner the funds to facilitate the move (rumors that they also had a bake sale seem mostly unfounded).
After impressing in Highbury against an English squad, Beara earned the nickname from a local pundit as “the Balerina with the hands of steel” a name which, I suspect gave mixed feelings.
Beara was in net for the Euro Cup match between Red Star and Manchester United, the last game played by the Busby Babes before the infamous Munich Air Disaster.
In 1960, Beara was transferred from Red Star and moved to Germany where he enjoyed four mostly uneventful years with Alemannia Aachen and Viktoria Koln.
On an international level, Beara helped push Yugoslavia to the forefront of global respect. Playing in three World Cups (1950, 1954 and 1958) and securing a Silver Medal at the 1952 Olympics where they lost in the Finals to the Mighty Magyars.
At the completion of his playing, Beara began his second career as a manager and continued on in this profession with limited success for another twenty-three (23) years.
Notable Accomplishments
Yugoslavia First League Champion: 1950, ’52, ’55, ‘ 56, ’57, ’59 and ’60;
Yugoslavia Football Cup: 1958 and 1959
Olympic Games (Silver Medal): 1952
CARDBOARD NOTES
Although Beara played most of his career in eastern Europe, there are actually several individual cards that can be found with his image. This is inconsistent with the times as players from other communist countries during this period are usually only depicted in eastern European issues as a “collective” team.
Between 1952 and 1963 a wide variety of cards can be found which seem to span most of every year of Beara’s professional and international career in Yugoslavia. The catch is that there is little to nothing known about the manufacturer of these cards. It is unknown if they were privately produced or a State issue. Some of the cards have the dates on the front of the card (which of course makes dating those issues easy) whereas others can be dated to fairly tight approximation. It seems that the high gloss and mostly black & white cards are from 1959 and earlier and the four (4) color cards date to a range of 1960 to 1963. The pre-’59 cards can be dated to tighter windows based upon the club uniform- anything referencing Hajduk Split would date to an approximate range of 1953-’55 whereas anything referencing Red Star would be to an approximate range of ’55-59 for the gloss black & whites and ’60—‘63 for the four color issues.
These Yugoslavian issues are loved by some collectors and hated by others. Some have described them as “beautiful eastern block ugly. ” Regardless, they are unquestionably unique and quite rare. For many years, the source of these cards has mostly come from only a handful of sellers inside of Serbia. Due mostly to a lack of western collector’s name recognition for almost all of these players, those cards have sat dormant however, in recent times there has been a remarkable uptick in interest and they have now begun to mostly disappear and there is no new stock replacing them.
The most sought after Beara card from Yugoslavia is a ca.1953 issue which is believed to be his Rookie Card and is numbered #189. Followed by card #1 referencing his team Hajduk Split and has been dated to 1955.
Outside of Yugoslavia, there are not many Beara issues however, he does make an appearance in the very rare 1958 Unela Pam-Pam set out of Israel as well as a German issue from Kiddy’s in 1954 where Beara is seen in flight with his hands of steel on full display.
