Petar Stojanović (born 7 October 1995) is a Slovenian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

club

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

, on loan from

Empoli Empoli () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, about southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Roman times. The comm ...

, and for the Slovenia national team.

Club career

Stojanović started playing football at the local football club Arne Tabor, before joining Slovan and later Interblock youth selections, where he remained until 2011, when he was acquired by

Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...

. After his transfer to Maribor, Joc Pečečnik, the owner of Interblock, accused

Zlatko Zahovič Zlatko Zahovič (; born 1 February 1971) is a Slovenian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder. After making a name for himself in Europe in Portugal, most notably with Porto and Benfica where he amassed Primeira L ...

, the director of football at Maribor, of going behind his back and stealing one of the biggest Slovenian talents of his age. At first Stojanović played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

but he then switched to the position of an

offensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. When he transferred to Maribor youth selections he was regarded as one of the most promising young midfielders in the country, however, Maribor's coaches and staff saw a much bigger potential for Stojanović on the position of

. During his first year in Maribor he mostly played for the under-17 team. However, he got his chance to play for the main squad in the second part of the 2011–12 season and made his first appearance in the Slovenian top division, 1. SNL, on 25 March 2012. At the time of his debut, he was 16 years, five months and 18 days old and set a new club record as the youngest player to appear in the top division. On 5 January 2016, he signed a five-year contract with

Dinamo Zagreb Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb ( en, Dinamo Zagreb Citizens' Football Club, link=yes, italics=yes), commonly referred to as GNK Dinamo Zagreb or simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo ...

, reportedly for a transfer fee of around €2 million plus add-ons. On 20 July 2021, Stojanović joined Italian club

on loan with a conditional obligation to buy. The conditions were fulfilled and Empoli purchased the rights on 17 June 2022.

International career

Stojanović was a member of the Slovenian under-17 team and appeared with the squad at the

2012 UEFA European Under-17 Championship The 2012 UEFA European Under-17 Championship was the eleventh edition of UEFA's European Under-17 Football Championship under its current age grouping. Slovenia hosted the tournament between 4 and 16 May. An appeal by the Hungarian Football Federa ...

, where he scored one goal. He made his senior national team debut versus

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

on 18 November 2014. At the time he was 19 years, one month and 11 days old and became the youngest debutant in the national team, surpassing the previous record set by Rene Mihelič seven years earlier. On 1 September 2021, he scored his first goal for the national team in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

, which ended in a 1–1 draw.

Career statistics

International

:''Scores and results list Slovenia's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Stojanović goal''.

Honours

Maribor * Slovenian PrvaLiga: 2011–12,

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

, 2013–14, 2014–15 * Slovenian Cup: 2011–12,

Slovenian Supercup The Slovenian Supercup ( sl, Superpokal Slovenije) was a football match played between the Slovenian PrvaLiga champions and the Slovenian Cup winners. Prior 2007, the match was held only twice, in 1995 and 1996. The competition was resurrected in ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

Dinamo Zagreb *

Prva HNL The Hrvatska nogometna liga () ( en, Croatian football league), also known as HNL or for sponsorship reasons the SuperSport HNL, is the top Croatian professional football league competition, established in 1992. Previously, it was called Prva H ...

: 2015–16, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20,

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Croatian Cup Croatian Cup may refer to: *Croatian Football Cup *Croatian Football Super Cup * Croatian Women's Football Cup *Croatian Basketball Cup, also known as Krešimir Ćosić Cup *Croatian Handball Cup *Croatian Water Polo Cup *Croatian Minute Movie Cup ...

: 2015–16, 2017–18,

* Croatian Supercup:

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

References

External links

Petar Stojanović
at NZS * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stojanovic, Petar 1995 births Living people Slovenian people of Serbian descent Footballers from Ljubljana Slovenian men's footballers Slovenia men's youth international footballers Slovenia men's under-21 international footballers Slovenia men's international footballers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football fullbacks NK Maribor players GNK Dinamo Zagreb players GNK Dinamo Zagreb II players Empoli FC players UC Sampdoria players Slovenian PrvaLiga players Croatian Football League players First Football League (Croatia) players Serie A players Serie B players Slovenian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Croatia Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Italy