Dražen Besek is a Croatian coach and former professional footballmidfield player, who last managed Maltese side Birkirkara. As a player he was mainly remembered for his time with Croatian teams Varteks and Dinamo Zagreb before moving abroad and appearing for clubs in France, Denmark and Austria. After his playing career ended he went into management, and had several coaching spells at his hometown football club Varteks, before moving abroad again and joining Polish side Zagłębie Lubin, Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua and many others.
Besek would return to his hometown football club of Varteks as a player-coach within the Croatian 1998–99 Prva HNL league season and guided the club to a fifth spot at the end of the campaign. This was followed by a brief spell at second tier club Čakovec before he returned to another top tier club with Slaven Belupo where in the 2001–02 Prva HNL where he guided them to a respectable sixth. This saw Varteks interested in his services again where within the 2002–03 Prva HNL campaign he aided them to an improved third at the end of the season before Besek made his first move abroad with Polish club Zagłębie Lubin. After a disappointing time in Poland he joined top tier Slovenian club Drava Ptuj for a brief period before returning to Varteks for the third time as a manager. On 26 December 2009 Besek decided to leave the club on mutual consent after accepting a position from top tier Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua where he was an assistant coach to Miroslav Blažević. After his one-year contract with the club expired he followed Blažević to become an assistant coach for the China U-23 team. On 10 August 2011 he returned to Shanghai Shenhua but this time as the head coach to replace Xi Zhikang for the rest of the season. After leaving Shenhua at the end of 2011, Besek took over NK Zagreb in March 2012. In September 2012, he resigned on his position after sustaining seven consecutive defeats in the 2012–13 Prva HNL. Besek would return to China with second tier club Hunan Billows F.C. for the start of the 2013 China League One campaign.
