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 lea ...

who plays as a

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for club

Salernitana Unione Sportiva Salernitana 1919 is an Italian professional football club based in Salerno, Campania. The original club was founded in 1919 and has been reconstituted three times in the course of its history, most recently in 2011. The current ...

, 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 River, Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Ancient Ro ...

. He also plays 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 List of cities and towns in Slovenia, second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is the seat of the ...

. 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 Portugal, most notably with Porto and Benfica where he amassed Primeira Liga totals ...

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

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), 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 i ...

but he then switched to the position of an offensive midfielder. 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 (), commonly referred to as simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo play their home matches at Stadion Maksimir. They are the most successful club in Cr ...

, 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. On 30 August 2024, Stojanović joined

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie 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 season. It had b ...

on a season-long loan.

International career

Stojanović represented Slovenia at all youth international levels from under-16 to under-21. As a member of the Slovenia under-17 team, Stojanović appeared 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 Feder ...

, where he scored one goal. He debuted for the senior squad against

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

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 Rene Mihelič (born 5 July 1988) is a Slovenian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for USV Hengsberg. Club career Mihelič came through NK Maribor's youth academy, before making his senior team debut in September 2005. In 2010 ...

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, officially the Slovak Republic, 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 west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

, which ended in a 1–1 draw.

Career statistics

Club

International

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

Honours

Maribor *

Slovenian PrvaLiga The Slovenian PrvaLiga (, ), currently named Prva liga Telemach due to sponsorship reasons, also known by the abbreviation 1. SNL, is the top level of the Slovenian football league system. Contested by ten clubs, it operates on a system of prom ...

: 2011–12,

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, 2013–14, 2014–15 *

Slovenian Cup Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes, an ethno-linguistic group mainly living in Slovenia * Sl ...

: 2011–12,

Slovenian Supercup The Slovenian Supercup () 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 2007 and was held annual ...

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

Dinamo Zagreb *

Prva HNL The Hrvatska nogometna liga (; ), abbreviated as HNL and also known for sponsorship reasons as the SuperSport HNL, is a professional association football league in Croatia and the highest level of the Croatian football league system. Establish ...

: 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 ...

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 The Croatian Water Polo C ...

: 2015–16, 2017–18,

* Croatian Supercup:

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

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 21st-century Slovenian sportsmen 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 US Salernitana 1919 players Slovenian PrvaLiga players Croatian Football League players First Football League (Croatia) players Serie A players Serie B players UEFA Euro 2024 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