Silvio Marić (born 20 March 1975) is a Croatian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

and retired player who played as an

attacking midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

. As of October 2022, he is the sporting director of Rudeš.

Club career

Born in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

, Marić began his professional career at

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 ...

in 1992. In the autumn of 1998, he appeared for Dinamo Zagreb in all of their six group matches in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

and secured himself a move to English club

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Since th ...

on 4 February 1999 for a transfer fee of $5.8 million. He made his

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

debut for Newcastle United on 10 March 1999 against

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is a professional association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Founde ...

, but never established himself as a regular in the side and, after making 23 Premier League appearances without scoring, moved to Portuguese club

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

in 2000. At Newcastle United, he was the first Croatian player to appear in an

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official attendance of 89,472 ...

, when he came on as a substitute in the Magpies' 2–0 defeat to

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

in the 1999 Final. During the final, with Newcastle trailing 2–0, Marić weakly shot past the post when exceptionally well placed to score. This summed up his Newcastle career in general. He did, however, score twice for Newcastle in their 1999-2000

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

campaign, when he netted both home and away against

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. After playing one season for Porto, where he also never became a regular, he made his first comeback to Dinamo Zagreb and subsequently spent two seasons with the club before making another move abroad, to Greek club

Panathinaikos Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos (, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club based in the City of Athens. Panathinaikos is one of the mos ...

in 2003. He subsequently spent two seasons at Panathinaikos and also made nine UEFA Champions League appearances for the club before making his second comeback to Dinamo Zagreb in 2005, signing a two-year contract. However, with his role in the team largely diminished and the fact that he mostly appeared as a substitute, he cancelled his contract upon the end of the 2005–06 season and thus finished his playing career. In his three spells with Dinamo, he appeared in a total of 146 league matches and scored 41 goals.

International career

Marić made his international debut for the Croatia national team on 30 April 1997 in their

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...

qualifier against

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

and scored his first international goal in his second cap against

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

on 6 September 1997 in this same qualifying session. Between 1995 and 1997, he also made several appearances for the Croatia national under-21 team. He was also a member of the Croatian squad that won the bronze medal at the 1998 FIFA World Cup finals in France and appeared in four matches at the tournament, although he only started the final group match against

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. He won a total of 19 international caps for Croatia between 1997 and 2002, but his first international goal also remained his only one. His last appearance for the Croatia national team came on 12 October 2002 in their second

Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. Th ...

qualifier, which they lost 2–0 to

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

on the road.

Career statistics

International goals

:''Results list Croatia's goal tally first.''

Honours

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 ...

: 1992–93, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 2002–03, 2005–06 *

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 ...

: 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002 * Croatian Supercup: 2002 Porto *

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; ) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Generali Tranquilidade since the 2024–25 seaso ...

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

Panathinaikos *

Super League Greece The Super League Greece 1 (), or Stoiximan Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Greece and the highest level of the Greek football league system. The league was formed on 16 July 2006 and repla ...

: 2003–04 *

Greek Cup The Greek Football Cup (), commonly known as the Greek Cup or Betsson Greek Cup for sponsorship reasons is a Greek football competition, run by the Hellenic Football Federation. The Greek Cup is the second-most important domestic men's footba ...

: 2003–04

Orders

Ribbon of an Order of the Croatian Wattle

Order of the Croatian Interlace The Order of the Croatian Interlace or Order of the Early Croatian three-strand pattern () is the seventeenth most important medal given by the Republic of Croatia. The order was founded on 1 April 1995. The medal is awarded for advancement of pro ...

- 1998

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Maric, Silvio 1975 births Living people Footballers from Zagreb Men's association football midfielders Croatian men's footballers Croatia men's under-21 international footballers Croatia men's international footballers 1998 FIFA World Cup players GNK Dinamo Zagreb players HNK Segesta players Newcastle United F.C. players FC Porto players Panathinaikos F.C. players Croatian Football League players Premier League players Primeira Liga players Super League Greece players Croatian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in England Croatian expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Croatian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Greece Croatian expatriate sportspeople in Greece Croatian football managers NK Rudeš managers