Aurelio Vidmar ( ; born 3 February 1967) is an Australian

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

manager and former player, who is the current manager of

Thai League 1 The Thai League 1 ( th, ไทยลีก 1), often referred to as T1, is the top level of the Thai football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with Thai League 2. Seasons run from August ...

club

Bangkok United True Bangkok United Football Club ( th, สโมสรฟุตบอลทรู แบงค็อก ยูไนเต็ด) is a Thai professional football club based in Pathum Thani province. Formerly known as Bangkok University Foot ...

. He is a former captain of the Australia national team and former coach of the Australia U23 national team. In recognition of decorated national team career, and his service to Adelaide United, the southern end of Hindmarsh Stadium is named the Vidmar End. His brother

Tony Vidmar Antony Vidmar (born 4 July 1970) is an Australian soccer coach and former player, who serves as an assistant coach with the Australia national team. He was a member of the Australia national team, competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona ...

is also a former footballer.

Club career

Vidmar started his professional career with local

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

team

Adelaide City Adelaide City Football Club is a soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club was known historically as Juventus — the original name given to the club by its founders in Adelaide's Italian community. Adelaide City is one of Aust ...

before moving to Europe in the mid-1990s to Belgium, where he was the league's top scorer in the 1994–95 season. He also played in Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and in Japan before returning to Australia in 1999 to rejoin City. Vidmar signed with

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional Association Football, soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under North American professional sports league organization#Systems ar ...

when they took Adelaide City's spot in the National Soccer League and was awarded the captaincy by then coach

John Kosmina Alexander John Kosmina (born 17 August 1956), known as John Kosmina, is an Australian former football (soccer) player and manager, most recently being the Senior Head Coach of Brisbane Strikers. He is a member of the Football Federation Austral ...

. Despite plans to play in the inaugural

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

season he retired in 2005 bringing an end to a 20-year playing career in which time he played 517 games scoring 127 goals.

International career

Vidmar was a member of the Australia national team for 12 years and was a member of three unsuccessful

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

qualification campaigns. He played and scored against

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the F ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

in Australia's final qualifying ties in 1993, he played at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadiu ...

against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in 1997 when a 2–0 lead slipped from Australia's grasp. He also played in the match between Australia and American Samoa in 2001 and scored twice. Vidmar sometimes captained the ''Socceroos'' between 1995 and 2001 when he retired for international competition accumulating 44

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

and scoring 17 goals. He was also selected as overage player on the Australia Olympic soccer team at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

Managerial career

After his retirement in 2005 he took up a role of assistant coach working under Kosmina, he was appointed as head coach on 2 May 2007. The 2007–08 A-League season was not very successful for Aurelio Vidmar, his side finishing 6th out of 8 teams on the ladder the first time Adelaide failed to make the finals. Calls for his resignation were being made and his unsuccessful Asian Champions League campaign, albeit against talented opposition, only fuelled these accusations, coming 3rd in his group with only the winner progressing to the quarter finals. Vidmar began to regain the support of the United supporters by securing valuable acquisitions such as Cristiano and

Sasa Ognenovski Sasa Ognenovski ( mk, Саша Огненовски, Saša Ognenovski; born 3 April 1979) is an Australian soccer player who played as a central defender, who represented the Australia national team on 22 occasions, and who last played for Sy ...

and built up Adelaide's defence and improved their attacking options. He created history by leading Adelaide to the 2008 AFC Champions League Final, becoming the first Australian team to achieve such a feat. This led Adelaide United

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Sam Ciccarello to re-sign Vidmar and his assistant Phil Stubbins for another three years in November 2008. Vidmar was inducted into the

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only esta ...

Football Hall of Fame in the same month. He is also in the

Football Federation of South Australia The Football South Australia (FSA), formerly known as Football Federation South Australia (FFSA), is the governing body of football (also known as soccer) in South Australia, established in 2006. Description Football South Australia are affili ...

Hall of Champions. He made a controversial diatribe after the

semi-final A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

against Melbourne Victory, in which Adelaide lost 4–0, and 6–0 on aggregate. Post-match, he claimed that Adelaide was a " piss-ant town", and that politics within the club was to blame for the loss. He later apologised for his remarks. However, with the start of the new season, Vidmar was unable to retain the form from the previous season with a slow start by taking only five of the 15 available points. He has been criticised for his use of playing a lone striker. Adelaide finished last in the 2009–10 season. As a result of comments he made at a media conference in November 2009 about "

beheading Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...

his players like they would do in Saudi Arabia" if they did not perform well, Adelaide United handed Vidmar a two-match touchline ban. The club also issued Vidmar a $10,000 fine. After leaving Adelaide United, Vidmar became the coach of the Young Socceroos. Vidmar was the caretaker coach of the Socceroos team for one match in 2013, after Holger Osieck's contract was terminated. He was appointed in 2018 as Director of Football for

Adelaide United FC Adelaide United Football Club is a professional soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was founded in 2003 to f ...

. After five months, the club announced on 6 February 2019, that Vidmar had resigned from his role. In 2022, Vidmar has been named as coach of

, the struggling Thai League 1 side. The Australian replaces

Totchtawan Sripan Totchtawan Sripan ( th, ธชตวัน ศรีปาน) or formerly Tawan Sripan ( th, ตะวัน ศรีปาน) nickname Ban is a Thai professional football manager and a former footballer. He is the current interim manager of T ...

, who has been appointed the club's technical director.

Personal life

Vidmar is the brother of

, who is also a former footballer.

Career statistics

Club

Internnational

Managerial statistics

Results from penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws in this table.

Honours

Player

Adelaide City * NSL Championship: 1986 FC Sion *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

: 1995–96 Australia *

FIFA Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships ( AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, ...

: runner-up

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

OFC Nations Cup The OFC Nations Cup is an international association football tournament held among the OFC member nations. It was held every two years from 1996 to 2004; before 1996 there were two other tournaments held at irregular intervals, under the name ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Manager

BG Pathum United *

Thailand Champions Cup The Thailand Champions Cup (continuing Kor Royal Cup, a different competition from the Thai Super Cup) is a single-game competition between the winners of previous Thai League 1 and Thai FA Cup, organised by the Football Association of Thailand. ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

Individual

* Belgian League top scorer: 1994–95 (22 goals) *

Oceania Footballer of the Year The Oceania Footballer of the Year award is presented each year to the best football (soccer) player from the Oceania region, as chosen by a panel of football journalists. The award was dominated by Australian players until that nation became part ...

: 1994 *

Hall of Champions: 2008 *

Hall of Fame: 2008 *

Coach of the Year: 2008–09 * South Australia Sports Hall of Fame 2019 *

Coach of the Month: August 2022

References

External links