Full name Josip Veber / Weber Name Josip Weber Years Team Role Football player | 1981–1982 NK Borac Podvinje Height 1.83 m 1982–1985 BSK Slavonski Brod | |
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Date of birth (1964-11-16) 16 November 1964 (age 51) Place of birth Slavonski Brod, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia | ||
Josip Weber (born Josip Veber, 16 November 1964 in Slavonski Brod) is a Croatian-Belgian retired professional football forward. While also representing Croatia and Belgium at international level.
Career
He begin his senior career in Yugoslavia with lower league side NK Borac Podvinje. He then joined BSK Slavonski Brod where he played 3 seasons before moving to HNK Hajduk Split of the Yugoslav First League in 1985. He spent 2 seasons in Split, winning the 1987 Yugoslav Cup. He also played for Yugoslav side NK Dinamo Vinkovci.
In his international career, Weber became notable as one of the last footballers who played for national teams of two countries after being granted permission thought clear connection shown from his family members. 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 the job as a Belgium international team striker. Belgian national team (he was allowed to play for Belgium because his grandfather was originally from Belgium and because the previous matches for Croatia were all friendlies that were not under FIFA. Croatia only joined FIFA and UEFA in 1993). He made his debut for Belgium on 3 June 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 the penalty area by Thomas Helmer, but referee Kurt Röthlisberger did not grant the penalty that could have been the Belgian equaliser. He won a total of eight international caps and scored six goals for Belgium, all in 1994.