Mladen Petrić

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Mladen Petrić
Personal information
Full name	Mladen Petrić
Date of birth	January 1, 1981 (1981-01-01) (age 27)
Place of birth	Dubrave, Brčko, SR BiH, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Playing position	Second striker
Club information
Current club	Borussia Dortmund
Number	10
Youth clubs
1986–1996 1996–1998	FC Neuenhof FC Baden
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1998–1999 1999–2004 2004–2007 2007–	FC Baden Grasshoppers FC Basel Borussia Dortmund	022 0(4) 114 (30) 072 (39) 029 (13)
National team2
2001–	Croatia	025 0(9)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of May 7, 2008. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of June 8, 2008. * Appearances (Goals)

Mladen Petrić [ˈmladɛn ˈpɛːtritɕ] (born January 1, 1981), is a Croatian football striker who currently plays for Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga and the Croatia national football team.

[edit] Early life

Born in Dubrave (inside Brčko municipality, 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 1998. He left FC Baden after one season and went on to sign with Grasshoppers Zürich in the summer of 1999.

[edit] Club career

[edit] Youth years in Switzerland

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.

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. He 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 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 had 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.

[edit] Borussia Dortmund

On June 11, 2007 Petrić signed for Bundesliga team Borussia Dortmund along with fellow national team player Robert Kovac as part of the sides squad rebuilding. He enjoyed a good start to the season, scoring a brace in Dortmund's 3-0 victory against Werder Bremen. He was one of the league's top scorers in his first season in Germany, and also made a notable assistance to his side reaching the DFB-Pokal final in which he scored a stoppage time equalizer against eventual winners and champions Bayern Munich.

[edit] National career

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.

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.

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 was an active member with his national side in their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, appearing in almost all of the team's qualifying matches. 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 their highest competitive victory ever. In the return leg against Andorra on September 12, 2007, he scored twice. On November 21, the last day of Euro 2008 Qualifiers, Petric was brought on as a substitute in the away fixture against England. With Croatia already qualified and the match tied at 2-2, Petrić scored the winning goal from about 25 yards to send England out of Euro 2008. It was England's first competitive defeat at the New Wembley. After the match, he refused to swap his jersey, going on to say "this is the proudest moment of my career. I didn't want to swap this jersey for anything".

Because of his impressive qualifying campaign, he was named in Croatia's Euro 2008 squad.

[edit] International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
01.	21 August 2002	Stadion Varteks, Varaždin, Croatia	Wales	1 – 1	1 – 1	Friendly
02.	7 October 2006	Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia	Andorra	1 – 0	7 – 0	Euro 2008 Qualifying
03.	7 October 2006	Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia	Andorra	2 – 0	7 – 0	Euro 2008 Qualifying
04.	7 October 2006	Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia	Andorra	3 – 0	7 – 0	Euro 2008 Qualifying
05.	7 October 2006	Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb, Croatia	Andorra	4 – 0	7 – 0	Euro 2008 Qualifying
06.	7 February 2007	Kantrida Stadium, Rijeka, Croatia	Norway	1 – 0	2 – 1	Friendly
07.	12 September 2007	Estadi Comunal, Andorra la Vella, Andorra	Andorra	0 – 2	0 – 6	Euro 2008 Qualifying
08.	12 September 2007	Estadi Comunal, Andorra la Vella, Andorra	Andorra	0 – 3	0 – 6	Euro 2008 Qualifying
09.	21 November 2007	Wembley Stadium, London, England	England	2 – 3	2 – 3	Euro 2008 Qualifying

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Mladen Petrić

• Official Website (German)
• Interview with Mladen Petrić in a Croatian-Swiss magazine (Croatian)
• Profile on FootballDatabase.com

v • d • e Croatia squad - UEFA Euro 2008 1 Pletikosa • 2 Šimić • 3 Šimunić • 4 Robert Kovač • 5 Ćorluka • 6 Vejić • 7 Rakitić • 8 Vukojević • 9 Kalinić • 10 Niko Kovač • 11 Srna • 12 Galinović • 13 Pokrivac • 14 Modrić • 15 Knežević • 16 Leko • 17 Klasnić • 18 Olić • 19 Kranjčar • 20 Budan • 21 Petrić • 22 Pranjić • 23 Runje • Coach: Bilić