Ante Covic

Ante Covic
Image:Ante Covic.jpg
Personal information
Full name	Ante Covic
Date of birth	June 13 1975 (1975-06-13) (age 34)
Place of birth	Sydney, Australia
Height	1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	Newcastle Jets
Number	1
Youth clubs
	Hurstville ZSC
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1996-1997 1997-1999 1999-2001 2001 2002-2006 2007-present	APIA Leichhardt Marconi Stallions PAOK Salonika NK Dinamo Zagreb Hammarby Newcastle Jets	023 (0) 046 (0) 008 (0) 000 (0) 121 (0) 033 (0)
National team2
2006-present	Australia	001 (0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 19 January 2008. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 22 July 2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Ante Covic [ˈaːntɛ ˈtʃɔːʋitɕ] (born June 13, 1975) is an Australian football (soccer) player of Croatian descent. He is a goalkeeper who currently plays for Newcastle United Jets in the Australian A-League.

Club career

He formerly played for Hammarby in Sweden, as well as Marconi Stallions and Sydney Olympic in Australia's old National Soccer League, PAOK Salonika and AO Kavala in Greece and Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia.

Newcastle Jets

Covic made his A-League debut in a 3-2 loss to Adelaide United in December 2006 at Hindmarsh Stadium. His performances since his return to the A-League have prompted many to question the wisdom of spending a large proportion of the team budget on a goalkeeper. Indeed, his lack of form since his return to Australia have seen him slip down the national team pecking order behind Adam Federici, Brad Jones, Michael Petkovic and Danny Vukovic at a time when he would have hoped to have established himself as a real successor to Mark Schwarzer after Zeljko Kalac's international retirement. After his bad start, however, Covic has begun to find his form of old, keeping 4 clean sheets in his last 7 Hyundai A-League games, and with his giant figure standing in front of the Jets goal they are expected to be a very tough defensive outfit this new A-League season.

International career

He was part of the Australian squad for the 2006 World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and was Australia's third choice goalkeeper behind Mark Schwarzer and Željko Kalac for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He made his debut for Australia against Bahrain on February 22 2006 in an Asian Cup qualifier and, to date, this is his sole international cap. He though claims that he will be the best goalkeeper out of Schwarzer and himself by the 2010 fifa world cup and will be the Goalkeeper for Australia if they make it to the world cup.

Honours

With Newcastle Jets:

• A-League Championship: 2007-2008
• A-League Goalkeeper of the Year: 2007-2008

External links

• Newcastle Jets profile
• FFA - Socceroo profile
• Oz Football profile

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

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