Marians Pahars

Skonto

Born in Chornobai in Ukraine to Latvian parents, Pahars grew up supporting Spartak Moscow. When he was about eight years old, Jurijs Andrejevs, a coach from Skonto visited his school, as a result of which Pahars decided to play football. Andrejevs was to have a major influence on Pahars’ football career. At 18, he signed for Pardaugava Riga moving on to Skonto Metāls and then into the Skonto first-team in 1995. He started playing as a midfielder, usually on the wings, before moving into a striker's role. His best goal ratio came in 1995, when he scored eight in nine games, which he followed up with 12 goals in 28 games the following season, as he became a regular in the Latvia national team. In his prime, he was dubbed the "Latvian Michael Owen". In the 1998 season, he scored 19 goals in 26 games for Skonto, and his progress was attracting attention from bigger clubs; he had trials with Salernitana (Italy), Werder Bremen (Germany) and Casino Salzburg (Austria), but he was recommended to Southampton's manager Dave Jones by Gary Johnson – the manager of the Latvian national team.

Southampton

He had a trial in a reserve team match against Oxford United on 10 February 1999 in which he scored a perfect hat-trick – a header and a goal with each foot in a 7–1 victory. Southampton agreed a fee with Skonto of around £800,000 and, despite difficulties in obtaining a work permit and objections from the Professional Footballers' Association, these problems were…

Pahars broke into the Latvia national team at the start of 1996, and made his debut on 12 March 1996 in a 1–0 friendly defeat away to Cyprus. His first goal for his country came in his ninth match at home to Poland in a 3–2 defeat also in a friendly on 17 February 1997. On 2 September 2006, he returned to the Latvia national team for a match against Sweden. All in all, he played 75 times and scored 15 goals for Latvia. Despite Latvia not qualifying for the World Cup Finals they did have success in June 2001 when they beat Estonia and Lithuania, to lift the Baltic Cup, with Pahars scoring in both games. Pahars was then named Latvian Footballer of the Year for a third successive year in November 2001. During a spell of injuries, he managed to play in the closing minutes as Latvia claimed a place in the European Championships in 2004 with a 2–2 draw in Turkey on 19 November 2003. He again struggled for full fitness, before scoring his first goal for Latvia in a 3–1 friendly win over Kazakhstan on 18 February – his first international goal since May 2002. With so many injury problems over the season, he was a substitute for all three of 2004 UEFA Latvia's Group matches at Euro 2004, although he did taste the championships by coming off the bench in all three games.

Skonto

In 2010, Pahars accepted an offer to become Aleksandrs Starkovs' assistant at Skonto, alongside legendary Vitālijs Astafjevs. He became the champion of Latvia in 2010 once again, this time in an assistant manager's role. In 2011, Starkovs left for Baku in Azerbaijan and Pahars became the manager of the club. Managing the club for two seasons, he helped the club win the Baltic League in 2011 and lift the Latvian Football Cup, as well as finish as the runners-up of the Latvian Higher League in 2012. In December 2012, Pahars left Skonto, being succeeded by Tamaz Pertia.

Latvia

Pahars accepted the opportunity to return to coaching, when the offer from LFF allowed him to become the manager of Latvian under-21 national team. Not long after his appointment, on 11 July 2013, Pahars was promoted, becoming the manager of the nation's senior team, shortly after Aleksandrs Starkovs vacated his position. As manager, Pahars guided Latvia to the 2014 and 2016 Baltic Cups. However, he failed to guide the nation to qualification to the FIFA World Cup for both the 2014 and 2018 tournaments, as well as failing for qualification to the UEFA European Championship for the 2016 tournament.

Jelgava

Pahars returned to Latvian domestic football, taking charge of Jelgava ahead of their 2018 Latvian Higher League campaign. He guided them to a sixth-place finish in his inaugural season in charge. In his second season in charge, Jelgava finished in seventh place in the…

Club

International

Scores and results list Latvia goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Pahars goal.

Managerial

As of 29 June 2021