Kristian Sarkies

Kristian Sarkies
Sarkies in training with Adelaide (2007)
Personnel
Surname	Kristian Ronald Sarkies
birthday	October 25, 1986
place of birth	Melbourne ,  Australia
size	177 cm
position	attacking midfield
Juniors
Years	station
	Dingley
	Moorabin
2002-2003	Victorian Institute of Sport
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2003-2004	South Melbourne FC	17 (1)
2005-2007	Melbourne Victory	35 (3)
2007-2010	Adelaide United	33 (2)
2010–2012	Melbourne Heart	11 (2)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2003	Australia U17	13 (4)
2004-2005	Australia U-20	14 (6)
2006-2008	Australia U-23	21 (8)
2006-2008	Australia	2 (0)
1 Only league games are given. As of April 6, 2012

Kristian Ronald Sarkies (born October 25, 1986 in Melbourne ) is an Australian football player . The midfielder has played for various clubs in the A-League since 2005 .

Club career

Sarkies began his active career in the National Soccer League with South Melbourne FC . After they were hired in 2004, he joined the newly founded club Melbourne Victory in 2005 , with whom he competed in the A-League . In the 2006/07 season he reached the Grand Final for the national championship with Melbourne. In the game against Adelaide United he was substituted on in the 90th minute for five-time goalscorer Archie Thompson and scored shortly afterwards to make it 6-0. He made headlines at the award ceremony that followed when he kissed Australian Prime Minister John Howard's bald head at the medal presentation.

The following season Sarkies signed a one-year contract with Adelaide United, which he extended in 2008 for two more years. During his time at Adelaide, Sarkies constantly struggled with injury problems, and a deep vein thrombosis in December 2008 even jeopardized the continuation of his career. In November 2008, Sarkies was with Adelaide as the first Australian club in the final of the AFC Champions League , but there they were clearly defeated by the Japanese representative Gamba Osaka . The following month he was also on the squad at the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, and when he reached fifth place, he made two appearances. The final stages of the 2008/09 season , when Adelaide advanced to the championship finals, missed Sarkies because of his thrombosis. For the 2010/11 season he moved back to Melbourne and joined the newly established A-League club Melbourne Heart . Sarkies broke his leg as an Adelaide player in February 2010 and never reached his previous performance at the Hearts. In two years he only came to eleven missions and was not renewed in 2012.

National team

In 2003, Sarkies won the oceanic qualifying tournament for the U-17 World Cup in Finland with the Australian U-17 selection . There he came as a supplementary player in the preliminary round to two missions. Two years later he took part in the Junior World Championships in the Netherlands with the U-20 national team. Again they failed in the preliminary round, Sarkies came to three missions and is highlighted in the technical report as an "attacking midfielder with a large radius of action". With the Australian Olympic selection (U-23) Sarkies qualified for the 2008 Olympic tournament in China. He was appointed to the 18-man tournament squad by trainer Graham Arnold and made two appearances in the preliminary round.

For the senior national team , Sarkies made his debut in a friendly against Liechtenstein while preparing for the 2006 World Cup. The midfielder was not considered for the final tournament. In 2008 he made his second international appearance as part of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.

Web links

• Entry at ozfootball.net
• Profile at the Australian Association ( Memento from May 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
• Kristian Sarkies in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ heraldsun.com.au: Why I kissed the PM (Feb. 21, 2007)
2. ↑ heraldsun.com.au: Kristian Sarkies' injury enough to break your Heart (23 Feb 2010)
3. ↑ au.fourfourtwo.com: Seven Exit Melbourne Heart (April 6, 2012)