Otto Barić (Croatian pronunciation: [bǎːritɕ];[1] 19 June 1933 – 13 December 2020) was an Austrian-Croatian professional football player and manager.

[2][3][4] Born in Eisenkappel, near Klagenfurt, Barić started his coaching career in 1969 at West German club Germania Wiesbaden and moved after one season to Austrian club Wacker Innsbruck, where he spent next two seasons and won two consecutive league champions titles before moving to LASK Linz in July 1972.

In the previous 1993–94 season, he led the club to the two-legged final of the UEFA Cup, but lost the title to Inter Milan with a 2–0 defeat on aggregate.

[8][9] He was jobless for a short time after leaving Austria Salzburg and then he worked as an assistant coach in the Croatia national team until the end of the 1996 European Championship.

[11] In July 2002, Barić signed a two-year contract with the Croatian Football Federation and was given a task to bring the Croatia national team to the finals of UEFA Euro 2004.

His competitive debut in the qualifying session for the European Championship was even less successful with a goalless draw against Estonia and one month later the team went on to lose 2–0 against Bulgaria.

[12] At the finals, Croatia was drawn into a tough group with defending champions France, England and Switzerland, and advancement to the quarterfinals was relatively unlikely.

Croatia had to win against England in the last group match to advance to the quarterfinals and managed to achieve a good start when Niko Kovač scored the opening goal after only four minutes, but England managed to switch the lead 2–1 until the end of the first half with goals from Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney in the last five minutes.

Then Albania went on to lose 2–0 at home against Romania, but the draws against Bulgaria and Slovenia, and the wins 6–0 on aggregate against Luxembourg, showed the results of his work.

Although Barić was suspended for these two matches and both were not directed by him, but by his assistant, he could not accept his player's behavior and announced his withdrawal although he had agreed to an extension of his contract some days before.