Aurelio Vidmar ( ; born 3 February 1967) is an Australian

association football 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 ...

manager and former player, currently manager of Melbourne City. He is a former captain of the Australia national team and former coach of the Australia U23 national team. In recognition of decorated national team career, and his service to Adelaide United, the southern end of Hindmarsh Stadium is named the Vidmar End.

Club career

Vidmar started his professional career with local

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

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, the 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 The National Soccer League (NSL) was the top-level soccer league in Australia, run by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL, the A-League's predecessor, spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977 until its ...

and was awarded the captaincy by then coach John Kosmina. Despite plans to play in the inaugural A-League season he retired in 2005 bringing an end to a 20-year playing career in which time he played 517 games scoring 127 goals.

International career

Vidmar was a member of the Australia national team for 12 years and was a member of three unsuccessful

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

qualification campaigns. He played and scored against

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona Franco (30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional association football, football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

in Australia's final qualifying ties in 1993, he played at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Lis ...

against

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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. Vidmar sometimes captained the ''Socceroos'' between 1995 and 2001 when he retired for international competition accumulating 44 caps and scoring 17 goals. He was also selected as overage player on the Australia Olympic soccer team at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

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 2007–08 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 The AFC Champions League Elite (abbreviated as the ACL Elite) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious cl ...

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 AFC 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 three years in November 2008. Vidmar was inducted into the

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only establ ...

Football Hall of Fame in the same month. He is also in the Football Federation of South Australia Hall of Champions. He made a controversial diatribe after the semi-final against Melbourne Victory, in which Adelaide lost 4–0, and 6–0 on aggregate. 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. 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 five 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. After leaving Adelaide United, Vidmar became the coach of the Young Socceroos. Vidmar was the caretaker coach of the Socceroos team for one match in 2013, after Holger Osieck's contract was terminated. He was appointed in 2018 as Director of Football for Adelaide United FC. After five months, the club announced on 6 February 2019, that Vidmar had resigned from his role. In 2022, Vidmar was named as coach of Bangkok United, the struggling Thai League 1 side. On 28 December 2022, Vidmar resigned his post for personal reasons.

Melbourne City

On the 1st of November 2023, Vidmar was announced as the new Melbourne City manager, until the end of the 2023-24 season.

Personal life

Vidmar is the brother of Tony Vidmar, who is also a former footballer.

Career statistics

Club

International

column indicates score after each Kilambe goal.''

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

Adelaide City * NSL Championship: 1986 FC Sion *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

: 1995–96 Australia *

FIFA Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships ( AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBO ...

runner-up:

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

; 3rd place,

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

OFC Nations Cup The OFC Men's Nations Cup, known as the OFC Nations Cup before the 2024 OFC Men's Nations Cup, 2024 edition, is the primary association football competition contested by the senior list of men's national association football teams, men's natio ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

Individual * Belgian League top scorer: 1994–95 (22 goals) * Oceania Footballer of the Year: 1994 * Football Federation of South Australia Hall of Champions: 2008 *

Hall of Fame: 2008 * South Australia Sports Hall of Fame 2019

Manager

Adelaide United * A-League Men Championship :Runner-up (1):

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

* A-League Men Premiership :Runner-up (1): 2008–09 * A-League Pre-Season Challenge Cup :Winners (1):

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League Elite (abbreviated as the ACL Elite) is an annual continental club association football, football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's List of top-division football clubs i ...

:Runner-up (1):

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

BG Pathum United * Thailand Champions Cup:

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Melbourne City * A-League Men Championship:

2025 So far, the year has seen the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudanese civil war, and the Gaza war. Internal crises in Bangladesh post-resignation v ...

Individual * A-League Coach of the Year: 2008–09 * Thai League 1 Coach of the Month: August 2022

References

External links

* * *
Adelaide United profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vidmar, Aurelio 1967 births Living people Australian men's soccer players Australian soccer managers Adelaide City FC players K.V. Kortrijk players Standard Liège players Feyenoord players FC Sion players CD Tenerife players Sanfrecce Hiroshima players Adelaide United FC players Croydon FC (Australia) players Belgian Pro League players Eredivisie players La Liga players J1 League players Australia men's international soccer players Australian expatriate soccer managers Olympic soccer players for Australia Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2000 OFC Nations Cup players OFC Nations Cup–winning players 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup players Soccer players from Adelaide Australian people of Slovenian descent Australian people of Italian descent Sportspeople of Italian descent National Soccer League (Australia) players Adelaide United FC managers Melbourne City FC managers A-League Men managers Singapore Premier League managers K.S.V. Waregem players Men's association football midfielders Lion City Sailors FC managers Aurelio Vidmar Aurelio Vidmar Australian expatriate men's soccer players Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Expatriate men's footballers in Japan Expatriate men's footballers in Singapore Australian expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Australian expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Australian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Australian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Australian expatriate sportspeople in Japan Australian expatriate sportspeople in Singapore Melbourne City FC non-playing staff 20th-century Australian sportsmen