Mark Viduka

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Club career

Melbourne Croatia

Viduka started his career in Australia with the Croatian-Australian club Melbourne Croatia in 1993 and became an Australian international in June of the following year. In his two seasons with Melbourne Croatia, he was top goal scorer in the National Soccer League (NSL) and was twice awarded the Johnny Warren Medal for NSL Player of the Year in 1993–94 and 1994–95. Viduka's time at Melbourne Croatia included one NSL title in the 1994–95 season.

Croatia Zagreb

In 1995, Viduka moved to Croatia to play with Croatia Zagreb (now called Dinamo Zagreb). The grandstand at Knights' Stadium, home of Melbourne Croatia, was renamed the "Mark Viduka Stand" in his honour and paid for with his transfer money.

He spent three-and-a-half seasons with the club, helping them to win three Doubles in Croatia between 1996 and 1998. He was also part of the Croatia Zagreb team that reached the third round of the UEFA Cup in 1997 and went on to make his UEFA Champions League group stage debut with the club a year later.

Celtic

Celtic bought Viduka in December 1998 for £3.5 million. In the same month as his signing, Celtic announced that Viduka had quit the club without kicking a ball for them, citing stress as his reason. A week later, Croatia Zagreb complained that they had not received their fee for the player. These issues were eventually resolved and Viduka made his first appearance in a Celtic shirt on 16 February 1999, scoring for the under-21 team as an over-age player in a 4–2 victory against Motherwell. After making his first team debut against Dundee United on 27 February 1999, his first goals for the club came when he scored a brace gainst Morton in the Scottish Cup on 8 March 1999. He was voted Scottish Player of the Year for 1999–2000 after scoring 27 goals in his first full season at Celtic Park. He was regarded as a skilled player, able to hold the ball up well and bring other players into the game. He did, however, incur the wrath of the Celtic support when he claimed to be only playing at about 70% of his capability during his time in Glasgow. On 4 December 2007, whilst presenting his show on talkSport , Ian Wright claimed that during half time of Celtic's February 2000 Scottish Cup defeat against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, an unnamed striker refused to go back out for the second half of the game. Wright refused to name the player, but spoke of his disgust at the lack of professionalism displayed by the player and also explained that it was Wright himself who came on as a subs

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