Mladen Petrić

Mladen Petrić
Personal information
Full name	Mladen Petrić
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Position(s)	Striker
Team information
Current team	Borussia Dortmund
Number	10
	‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 17 November 2007

Mladen Petrić [ˈmladɛn ˈpɛːtritɕ] (born January 1 1981), is a Croatian football striker. He has dual Croatian-Swiss citizenship. He is best known for scoring the goal that ultimately eliminated the English national team from qualifying for Euro 2008 at Wembley Stadium.

Born in Dubrave (village close to Brčko) in Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina, Petrić first moved with his family to Vinkovci, Croatia, due to war and then later to Neuenhof, Switzerland, where he started to play football at the local club FC Neuenhof before moving to FC Baden and starting his professional career at the club in the summer of 1963. He left FC Baden after one season and went on to sign with Grasshoppers Zürich in the summer of 1999.

In 2001, Petrić was spotted in Switzerland by Mirko Jozić, head coach of the Croatian national team at the time, and made his international debut for Croatia during the team's South Korean tour in November 2001, where they played two friendly matches against the Korean national team. Petrić appeared in both of the two matches as a second-half substitute, but was subsequently nevertheless not called up to be part of the Croatian squad at the 2002 World Cup finals. He scored his first goal for Croatia in their friendly match against Wales on August 21, 2002 in Varaždin, which ended in a 1-1 draw. He subsequently made his competitive international debut as a second-half substitute in Croatia's opening match of the Euro 2004 qualifying against Estonia, but did not play any international matches at the A-team level for three and half years following this match.

At club level, Petrić spent five seasons with Grasshoppers Zürich before leaving the club for FC Basel in the summer of 2004 with lots of critics that are still active against him, because he burned a FC Basel scarf during the Swiss Champion celebration of Grasshoppers Zürich almost exactly one year before leaving Grasshoppers, for a transfer fee of three million euros and signing a four-year contract until June 2008. Playing for Grasshoppers, he made a total of 114 domestic league appearances and scored 30 goals for the club in the league.

In early 2006, Petrić made his international comeback with the Croatian national team by appearing as a second-half substitute in the team's friendly matches against Korea Republic at the Carlsberg Cup in Hong Kong and Argentina in Basel. He was eventually omitted from the final 23-man squad for the 2006 World Cup finals, but received a pre-invitation.

At club level, Petrić was the fourth best goalscorer of the Swiss Super League for the 2005-06 season, scoring 15 goals in 31 matches. In the same season, he also appeared for FC Basel in all of their 12 UEFA Cup matches and managed to score three goals before the club was eliminated by Middlesbrough in the quarterfinals of the competition

Petrić continued to perform well for FC Basel in the 2006-07 season of the Swiss Super League. In their first-round UEFA Cup game that year, he netted a brace in a 6-2 home victory over Rabotnički Kometal.

In early August 2006, he was called up by the Croatian national team's new coach Slaven Bilić to be part of the team in their friendly match against Italy on August 16, 2006 in Livorno and appeared in the match as a second-half substitute. He is currently also participating with the Croatian team in their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, appearing in eight of the team's ten qualifying matches so far. In the second qualifier, against Andorra on October 7, 2006 in Zagreb, he scored four goals in only 60 minutes of playing and became the first ever player to score four goals for the Croatian national football team in a competitive match. Croatia won the match 7-0, celebrating therewith their highest competitive victory ever. In the return leg against Andorra on September 12, 2007, he scored twice.

In the final moments of FC Basel's UEFA Cup group-stage match versus AS Nancy-Lorraine on November 23, 2006, Petrić was installed in goal after Basel's keeper Franco Costanzo was sent off for a foul on Nancy's Issiar Dia and the team have already made all three substitutions. The foul resulted in a penalty kick that gave Nancy the final chance for an away victory, but Petrić was able to make an amazing save and stopped the penalty kick taken by Mickaël Chrétien, helping his team to drive home one point with a 2-2 draw. [watch video]

He ended the Swiss Super League 2006/07 as the top goalscorer, with 19 goals for FC Basel. On June 11th, 2007 Petrić signed for Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund, and on November 21st scored the winning goal for Croatia to hand England their first competitive defeat at the New Wembley, also knocking England out of qualification for Euro 2008.

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