Aurelio Vidmar

Aurelio Vidmar

Personal information
Full name	Aurelio Vidmar
Date of birth	(1967-02-03) 3 February 1967
Place of birth	Adelaide, Australia
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current team	Bangkok Glass
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1985–1991	Adelaide City	157	(29)
1991–1992	Kortrijk	30	(10)
1992–1994	Waregem	57	(25)
1994–1995	Standard Liège	32	(22)
1995–1996	Feyenoord	15	(2)
1996	Sion	13	(7)
1997–1998	Tenerife	25	(1)
1998–1999	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	24	(6)
1999–2003	Adelaide City	137	(23)
2001	→ Croydon Kings (loan)	3	(0)
2003–2004	Adelaide United	27	(2)
Total		520	(127)
National team‡
1996	Australia U-23	4	(3)
1991–2001	Australia	44	(17)
Teams managed
2005–2006	Adelaide United (assistant)
2007–2010	Adelaide United
2010–2016	Australia (assistant)
2010–2016	Australia U-23
2012	Australia U-20
2013	Australia (caretaker)
2016–	Bangkok Glass
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 16:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC). ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 17:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Aurelio Vidmar (born 3 February 1967 in Adelaide) is an Australian retired football (soccer) player, former captain of the Australian national team and former coach of the Olyroos.

Biography

Club career

Aurelio started his professional career with local Adelaide team Adelaide City 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, Netherlands and in Japan before returning to Australia in 1999 to rejoin City. Vidmar signed with Adelaide United when they took Adelaide City's spot in the National Soccer League and was awarded the captaincy by then coach John Kosmina. Despite plans to play in the inaugural A-League season he retired in 2005^[1] bringing an end to a 20-year playing career in which time he played 517 games scoring 127 goals. He is the older brother of Tony Vidmar.

International career

Vidmar was a member of the Socceroos team for 12 years and was a member of three unsuccessful FIFA World Cup qualification campaigns. He played and scored against Diego Maradona's Argentina in Australia's final qualifying ties in 1993, he played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground against Iran 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. Aurelio sometimes captained the national team between 1995 and 2001^[2] when he retired for international competition accumulating 44 caps and scoring 17 goals.

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 2007-2008 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 and built up Adelaide's defence and improved their attacking options. He created history by leading Adelaide to the 2008 Asian Champions League final, becoming the first Australian team to achieve such a feat. This led Adelaide United CEO Sam Ciccarello to re-sign Vidmar and his assistant Phil Stubbins for another 3 years in November 2008.^[3]

Vidmar was inducted into the Football Federation Australia Football Hall of Fame in the same month.^[4] He is also in the Football Federation of South Australia Hall of Champions.^[5] He made a controversial diatribe after the semi-final against Melbourne Victory, in which Adelaide lost 4-0, and 6-0 on aggregate.^[6] 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.^[7]

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 5 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 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.^[8][9] After leaving Adelaide United, Vidmar became the coach of the Young Socceroos.^[10] Vidmar has now become the caretaker coach of the Socceroos team.^[11]

Club statistics

^[12]

National team statistics

Managerial statistic

As of 24 September 2016

Nat.	Team	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Win %
	Bangkok Glass	13 August 2016	Present	7000600000000000000♠6	7000200000000000000♠2	7000200000000000000♠2	7000200000000000000♠2	7001110000000000000♠11	7001110000000000000♠11	+0	7001333300000000000♠33.33
Career totals				7000600000000000000♠6	7000200000000000000♠2	7000200000000000000♠2	7000200000000000000♠2	7001110000000000000♠11	7001110000000000000♠11	+0	7001333300000000000♠33.33

¹ A win or loss by the penalty shoot-out is counted as the draw in time.

Honours

With Australia:

• FIFA Confederations Cup: 1997 (Runners-Up)
• OFC Nations Cup: 2000

With Adelaide City:

• NSL Championship: 1986

Personal Honours:

• Belgian League Top Scorer: 1994-1995 with Standard Liège - 22 goals
• Oceania Footballer of the Year: 1994
• Football Federation of South Australia Hall of Champions: 2008
• Football Federation Australia Hall of Fame: 2008
• A-League Coach of the Year: 2008-2009

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aurelio Vidmar.

• Aurelio Vidmar on Twitter
  
• Adelaide United profile

Australia Squads
Australia men's football squad – 1996 Summer Olympics 1 Juric 2 Lozanovski 3 Moric 4 Babic 5 Muscat 6 Horvat 7 Tsekenis 8 Corica 9 Viduka 10 Vidmar 11 Tiatto 12 Spiteri 13 Foxe 14 Agostino 15 Casserly 16 Enes 17 Aloisi 18 Petkovic Coach: Thomson Australia squad – 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup Runners-up 1 Bosnich 2 Horvat 3 Lazaridis 4 Ivanović 5 Tobin 6 Zelić 7 Slater 8 Foster 9 Viduka 10 A. Vidmar 11 Kewell 12 Bingley 13 Hooker 14 T. Vidmar 15 Skoko 16 Trimboli 17 Mori 18 Aloisi 19 Tapai 20 Kalac 21 Muscat Coach: Venables Australia squad – 2000 OFC Nations Cup winners (3rd title) 1 Kalac 2 Muscat 3 Murphy 4 Okon 5 Popovic 6 Foster 7 Tiatto 8 Lazaridis 9 Zdrilic 10 Emerton 11 Agostino 13 Vidmar 15 Zane Bolton Cardozo Chipperfield Colosimo Corica Horvat Laybutt Coach: Farina Australia squad – 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup Third Place 1 Schwarzer 2 Muscat 3 Moore 4 Okon 5 T. Vidmar 6 Popovic 7 Skoko 8 Lazaridis 9 Aloisi 10 Emerton 11 Zdrilic 12 Bolton 13 Bresciano 14 Murphy 15 Foxe 16 Horvat 17 Corica 18 Chipperfield 19 A. Vidmar 20 Zane 21 Thompson 22 Sterjovski 23 Juric Coach: Farina