Career
A native of Zagreb, Cerin started playing at NK Trnje, a small local club, in the early 1970s. In 1976 he moved to another local side, the third level minnows NK Zagrebački Plavi (who later merged with NK Zagreb in 1980). In April 1976 the Yugoslavia national football team decided to play a training match against Zagrebački Plavi in preparation for their Union of European Football Associations Euro 1976 qualifier versus Wales played in Zagreb.
The game proved to be a turning point for Cerin as he scored a hat-trick versus the national team and their stalwart goalkeeper Ognjen Petrović.
Cerin instantly became sought after by top clubs. He was first invited by Tomislav Ivić to join Hajduk Split but the deal never materialised as Ivić had left Hajduk for Netherlands at the end of the 1975-1976 season to take over Ajax.
Dinamo Zagreb then offered him a contract and Cerin joined the club for the 1976-1977 season. A very prolific scorer, he led the club to their first league title in 24 years in the 1981-1982 season, also becoming the league"s top scorer with 19 goals.
He made a total of 474 appearances and scored 295 goals for the Blues, including 216 appearances and 101 goals in the Yugoslav First League, and holds the record as the club"s top scorer of the Yugoslav era.
Alongside players such as Marko Mlinarić and Zlatko Kranjčar Cerin is regarded as one of the symbols of one of the most successful periods in Dinamo"s history, in which they also finished as runners-up in the league twice (1976-1977, 1978-1979) and runners-up in the cup three times (1982, 1985, 1986). However, in spite of his excellent scoring record, Cerin was constantly overlooked by national team managers and was never called up for Yugoslavia. In late 1985 Cerin had a short stint in the American Major Indoor Soccer League (where he was referred to as John Cerin) and scored a single goal in three matches for Kansas City Comets before being recalled to Dinamo by manager Miroslav Blažević in the winter break of the 1985-1986 season.
Cerin finally left the club in 1986 and played a single season at Saskatchewan Austria Klagenfurt (present-day Football Club Kärnten) in Austria.
He then returned to Zagreb and appeared in a handful of games for another small local side NK Novi Zagreb (present-day Hrvatski Dragovoljac) before retiring from football. Cerin then opened a public in Zagreb which he ran into the 1990s.
In 2001 he moved to Privlaka, a small town near the coastal city of Zadar, where he runs a small retirement home.
