He was born in Vojvodina in 1947 to parents from Montenegro, and after moving to Ljubljana, he took his first football steps at Kodeljevo at Slovan. He joined Olimpija as a youth player, and later played 261 games for the senior team and scored 66 goals. He has gone down in history as one of the best and, above all, most popular Olimpija players of all time. As a winger, he was known for his quick runs and skill with the ball at his feet.

He also scored quite a few goals and was even the top scorer in the Yugoslav league in the 1973/74 season with 17 goals. He scored more goals than Dušan Bajević. After a decade in Ljubljana, he moved to Germany in 1975, where he played 129 matches for Eintracht Braunschweig and became one of the best foreign players in the club’s history. He played 20 matches for the Yugoslav national team and scored 5 goals, and also appeared at the 1974 World Cup.

He had to retire prematurely due to vision problems, with his final match played on May 2, 1982, against Hajduk. Later, he served as an assistant to Srečko Katanec when Katanec led Slovenia to the European and World Championships. When Olimpija was climbing from the fifth tier back to the first league, he was part of the coaching staff at the club. Danilo Popivoda passed away in 2021 at the age of 75.

Achievements