Steven Ugarkovic (born 19 August 1994) is an Australian

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

player who plays as a

defensive 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. ...

for

A-League A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as the A-League by the ...

club

Western Sydney Wanderers Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, Wanderers, or simply as WSW) is an Australian professional association football club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in t ...

Career

Osijek

Ugarkovic started his professional career at

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

n club

NK Osijek Nogometni klub Osijek (), commonly referred to as NK Osijek (), is a Croatian professional association football, football sports club, club from Osijek. Founded in 1947, it was the club from Slavonia with the most seasons in the Yugoslav First Le ...

, moving from his home city of

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

to pursue a career in football at the age of 17.

Newcastle Jets

Ugarkovic returned to Australia in the January transfer window of the 2015-16 A-League season. Ugarkovic's first appearance for the Newcastle Jets was on 31 January 2016, in a 1–0 loss to Adelaide United. In January 2021, it was announced that Ugarkovic would play out the rest of the

2020-21 A-League The symbol , known in Unicode as hyphen-minus, is the form of hyphen most commonly used in digital documents. On most keyboards, it is the only character that resembles a minus sign or a dash, so it is also used for these. The name ''hyphen-min ...

season at Newcastle before joining

Western Sydney Wanderers FC Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, Wanderers, or simply as WSW) is an Australian professional association football, association football club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South W ...

for the

2021-22 A-League Increment or incremental may refer to: *Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism) *Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming *Incremental computing *Incremental backup, wh ...

season. Ugarkovic spent seasons at Newcastle. Ugarkovic made 144 appearances for Newcastle across all competitions, scoring 9 goals.

Western Sydney Wanderers

Ugarkovic completed his transfer early in a swap deal involving

Jordan O'Doherty Jordan O'Doherty (born 14 October 1997) is an Australian professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder. Club career Adelaide United In August 2016, O'Doherty signed a two-year senior contract with Adelaide United after playing for t ...

joining Newcastle, and spent the end of the 2020-21 season as well as the 2021-22 season at Western Sydney. Ugarkovic departed the Wanderers at the completion of his first full season at the club. Ugarkovic made 35 appearances and scored 4 goals in all competitions for the Wanderers.

Wellington Phoenix

Ugarkovic joined

Wellington Phoenix Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League Men, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the 2007–08 ...

ahead of the 2022-23 season. Ugarkovic was also at the Phoenix for a single season only, in March announcing his impending departure at the end of the season. Ugarkovic made 27 appearances for Wellington, scoring one goal.

Personal life

His father, John Ugarkovic, played in the NSL for

Sydney United Sydney United 58 Football Club is a semi-professional soccer club and current NSW NPL Champions based in Edensor Park, Sydney, New South Wales Australia. The club was formed as Sydney Croatia in 1958, by Croatian Australians in the area, but it ...

. In June 2022, Steven Ugarkovic married Bianka Ugarkovic.

Career statistics

References

External links

* 1994 births Living people Soccer players from Sydney Australian people of Croatian descent Men's association football midfielders Croatian men's footballers Croatia men's youth international footballers Australian men's soccer players Australia men's under-23 international soccer players NK Osijek players HNK Gorica players Newcastle Jets FC players Western Sydney Wanderers FC players Wellington Phoenix FC players Melbourne City FC players Croatian Football League players First Football League (Croatia) players A-League Men players People educated at Oakhill College Australian expatriate men's soccer players Expatriate men's association footballers in New Zealand Australian expatriate sportspeople in New Zealand 21st-century Australian sportsmen {{Australia-footy-midfielder-stub