Željko Kalac

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Personal information
Željko Kalac
Full name	Željko Kalac
Date of birth	16 December 1972
Place of birth	Sydney, NSW, Australia
Height	2.02 m (6'8")
Nickname	Spider
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	AC Milan
Number	16
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1989-1995 1995-1996 1996-1998 1998-2002 2002-2005 2005-present	Sydney United Leicester City Sydney United Roda JC AC Perugia AC Milan	92 (0) 1 (0) 41 (0) 115 (0) 80 (0) 9 (0)
National team²
1992-2006	Australia	54 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14 January 2007. ² National team caps and goals correct as of 8 October 2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Željko Kalac [ˈʒɛʎkɔ ˈkalats] (born December 16, 1972 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian football (soccer) goalkeeper, who currently plays for A.C. Milan in Serie A. He is nicknamed "Spider" thanks to his height (2.02m) and large armspan, and is of Croatian descent.

1 Club career
- 1.1 Career Stats
2 International career
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Club career

Kalac joined Milan in the summer of 2005 on a free transfer, after his previous club A.C. Perugia was demoted to Serie C1 for financial troubles. Other clubs include Roda JC, Leicester City and Sydney United. A move by Terry Venables to take Kalac to Portsmouth in 1997 fell through when he was refused a UK work permit.

Despite only making three 1st team appearances at Leicester City, his final appearance was as a substitute in the 1996 Division One playoff final, coming on as a substitute during the final minute of extra-time. Being so big, Leicester manager Martin O'Neill believed that Kalac would be able to save penalties during the shootout. But then Steve Claridge scored with the last kick of the game, literally 20 seconds after Kalac had come onto the pitch, and the Foxes were promoted to the Premiership.

It wasn't until an ankle injury suffered by incumbent Dida in the first leg of the Champions League knockout stage against Bayern Munich that Kalac made his CL and Serie A debuts in a Milan uniform. He also played in the Coppa Italia tournament until Milan were eliminated by underdog Palermo on a disappointing 3-1 aggregate.

On November 21, 2006, Kalac made his second UEFA Champions League appearance for Milan as he came off the bench in the final 13 minutes of the group match against AEK Athens. Dida tore knee ligaments and was predicted to be out for two to three months,^[1] which finally gave Kalac a chance to make more competitive appearances for Milan. Kalac's first full game in the 2006-07 season was on November 25, 2006 in Milan's 1-0 win over FC Messina in the Serie A.

On January 14, 2007 Kalac suffered an injury against Reggina and was replaced by a recovering Dida for the following match against Lazio. These goalkeeper injury concerns prompted Ancelotti to sign Marco Storari, the fourth goalkeeper in the Milan first team alongside veteran Valerio Fiori. Despite this extra competition, Kalac recovered from injury and played all 90 minutes for Milan against Celtic on 20 February in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League round of 16. However, Dida returned to the squad for the next Serie A match five days later and has been in goal for Milan ever since.

In March 2007, Kalac signed a contract extension with Milan, keeping him at San Siro until at least 2009.^[2]

[edit] Career Stats

(correct as of 28 March 2007)

Club	Season	League		Playoffs/Finals		Cup		Total
Club	Season	Apps	CS	Apps	CS	Apps	CS	Apps	CS
Sydney Croatia SC	1989	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	-
	1989-90	11	2	-	-	-	-	11	2
	1990-91	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	-
	1991-92	21	5	-	-	-	-	21	5
	1992-93	11	4	-	-	-	-	11	4
	1993-94	25	10	2	1	-	-	27	11
	1994-95	24	13	3	1	2	0	29	14
Leicester City	1995-96	1	0	1	0	1	0	3	0
Sydney United	1996-97	26	7	3	1	0	-	29	8
Sydney United	1997-98	15	7	2	0	-	-	17	7
Roda JC	1998-99	33	-	-	-	-	-	33	-
	1999-00	30	-	-	-	-	-	30	-
	2000-01	20	-	-	-	4	4	24	-
	2001-02	32	-	-	-	7	3	39	-
Perugia	2003-03	22	-	-	-	8	-	30	-
	2003-04	29	-	-	-	11	-	40	-
	2004-05	29	-	-	-	6	-	35	-
AC Milan	2005-06	2	2	-	-	1	1	3	3
AC Milan	2006-07	7	4	-	-	6	3	13	7
Career totals								395	-

CS = Clean sheets kept;
Playoffs/Finals refers to Australian NSL Finals series and English promotion playoff matches;
Cup includes domestic and European cups

[edit] International career

Main article: Željko Kalac International Appearances

He was an Australian international for more than 14 years, but has spent many years as understudy to first Mark Bosnich and later Mark Schwarzer. Interestingly, he has gained more international caps than both of them (Bosnich has 22 and Schwarzer 40 caps to his name). He was selected as a member of Australia's 2006 FIFA World Cup squad and made one appearance at the tournament.

In Australia's final first round match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup between Croatia and Australia, Australian Manager Guus Hiddink surprisingly selected Kalac over primary goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer. With Australia needing a draw or better to advance and with the scores tied at one-all in the second half, Kalac fumbled a long range shot from Niko Kovač and conceded what he described as a 'shit goal'. Fortunately for Kalac and the Australians, Harry Kewell scored later in the half and they advanced to the Round of 16. After the match Kalac spoke of his relief: "You're looking at the ground to eat you up. Obviously for me, it's very relieving to get that result."^[3]

Kalac announced his international retirement on October 4, 2006. He played his last game against Paraguay on October 7, 2006, along with fellow international retirees Tony Popovic, Tony Vidmar and Stan Lazaridis.^[4]

[edit] Trivia

Kalac's preferred playing number (when not the conventional number 1) is 18 and has generally worn this number when playing for Australia. However, when he joined AC Milan in 2005, number 18 was claimed by Marek Jankulovski who joined at the same time, and so wears number 16.

[edit] References

^ "AC Milan G Dida out with knee injury", Yahoo! Sports, 2006-11-23. Retrieved on December 1, 2006.
^ "Sky Sports- New Deal for Milan keeper", Sky Sports, 2007-03-06. Retrieved on March 9, 2007.
^ "Schwarzer set for quick return", The World Game, 2006-06-23. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.
^ "Kalac's exit spells end of keeper debate", Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-10-06. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.

[edit] External links

	Australia squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup
1 Schwarzer \| 2 Neill \| 3 Moore \| 4 Cahill \| 5 Čulina \| 6 Popović \| 7 Emerton \| 8 Skoko \| 9 Viduka \| 10 Kewell \| 11 Lazaridis \| 12 Čović \| 13 Grella \| 14 Chipperfield \| 15 Aloisi \| 16 Beauchamp \| 17 Thompson \| 18 Kalac \| 19 Kennedy \| 20 Wilkshire \| 21 Sterjovski \| 22 Milligan \| 23 Bresciano \| Coach: Hiddink

A.C. Milan - Current Squad

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Željko Kalac

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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[edit] Club career

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[edit] International career

[edit] Trivia

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