Branko Strupar

Strupar was born in Zagreb, Croatia, Yugoslavia and started his footballing career with the local county tier club Špansko in the west of the city. He was scouted by a number of Croatian and European clubs in early 1990s, and ultimately joined Genk in 1994.

Strupar played in Belgium for Genk, winning promotion to the Belgian First Division in 1996, and becoming champion of Belgium with the same team in 1999. He also won the Belgian Golden Shoe as Player of the Year for 1998. In 1998, he finished as top scorer with 22 goals. He moved to Derby County in December 1999, where he most notably scored the first British league goal of the year 2000 after two minutes against Watford, a game in which he scored twice. While at Derby, Strupar gained popularity with his prolific scoring ability. Despite an excellent goals-to-games ratio when fit, injuries curtailed his Derby career, and he was eventually given a free transfer, with which he returned to Croatia for a brief spell at Dinamo Zagreb to wind up his career.

He made his debut for Belgium in an August 1999 friendly match against Finland, coming on as a 46th-minute substitute for Sandy Martens, and earned a total of 17 caps, scoring five goals. His final international was a June 2002 World Cup match against Tunisia.

Strupar lives in Prečko with his wife, daughters Dora and Laura and his son Bruno. He worked as a guest football commentator on the Croatian network RTL.