Josip Weber
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| Josip Weber | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Josip Weber | |
| Date of birth | November 16, 1964 (age 42) | |
| Place of birth | Split, Croatia | |
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) | |
| Playing position | striker | |
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1988-1994 1994-1997 |
Cercle Brugge Anderlecht |
204 (136) |
| National team | ||
| 1992 1994 |
Croatia Belgium |
3 (1) 8 (6) |
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
||
Josip Weber (born November 16, 1964 in Split) is a former Croatian-Belgian footballer who played as a striker.
At club level, he played for Belgian clubs Cercle Brugge and Anderlecht. In his international career, Weber became notable as one of the last footballers who played for national teams of two countries after acquiring another nationality. In July 1992, he started his international career with the Croatian national team during their Australian tour, where he appeared in all three of their friendly matches against the Australian national team and also managed to score Croatia's only goal during the tour as he scored in the second match, which they lost 3-1. The other two matches ended with a 1-0 win for Australia and a goalless draw respectively. After that, he never played for Croatia again.
During the 1993-94 season, Weber took Belgian nationality and became eligible to play for the Belgian national team (he was allowed to play for Belgium because the previous matches for Croatia were all friendlies). He made his debut for Belgium on June 3, 1994 in their friendly match against Zambia, which was highly successful as he managed to score five goals in a 9-0 win for Belgium. He was also a regular member of the Belgian team at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States and played in all of their four matches at the tournament, starting three of them. He nevertheless did not manage to score any goals before Belgium was eliminated by Germany in the round of 16. On the final minutes of that match, he was brought down in area by Thomas Helmer, but the referee missed what could be Belgium equaliser. He won a total of eight international caps and scored six goals for Belgium, all in 1994.
While playing for Cercle Brugge in three seasons between 1991 and 1994, Weber became the top goalscorer of the Jupiler League three times in a row. He transferred to Anderlecht in the summer of 1994 and finished his career at the club in June 1997.
 |
Belgium squad - 1994 FIFA World Cup | |
|---|---|---|
|
1 Preud'homme | 2 Medved | 3 Borkelmans | 4 Albert | 5 Smidts | 6 Staelens | 7 Van Der Elst | 8 Nilis | 9 Degryse | 10 Scifo | 11 Czerniatynski | 12 De Wilde | 13 Grün | 14 De Wolf | 15 Emmers | 16 Boffin | 17 Weber | 18 Wilmots | 19 Van Meir | 20 Verlinden | 21 Van Der Heyden | 22 Renier | Coach: Van Himst |
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