Mark Viduka

By Craig · Published 27 October 2026

Mark Viduka is an Australian centre forward who scored 92 Premier League goals for Leeds, Middlesbrough and Newcastle between 2000 and 2009. He was Leeds' top scorer in all four of his seasons there.

He is remembered for scoring all four in Leeds' 4-3 win over Liverpool in November 2000.

Clubs

Melbourne Knights (1992 to 1995), Croatia Zagreb (1995 to 1998), Celtic (1998 to 2000), Leeds United (2000 to 2004), Middlesbrough (2004 to 2007), Newcastle United (2007 to 2009)

Premier League

240 appearances, 92 goals

Honours

Scottish League Cup 2000, UEFA Cup runner-up 2006, SPFA Players' Player of the Year 2000

International

Australia, 43 caps, 11 goals; captain at the 2006 World Cup

Fantasy price

£9.0m in 2002/03

Who did he play for?

He scored 40 goals in 48 league games for Melbourne Knights and won the Johnny Warren Medal, the Australian league's player of the year award, two years running. Croatia Zagreb signed him in 1995 and he won three league and cup doubles there.

Celtic bought him in December 1998. He walked out four days after signing, saying he was stressed, then came back and scored 27 in his first full season. In 2000 he was the SPL's top scorer and the players' player of the year, the first non-European to win it.

Leeds paid a club record £6 million for him in the summer of 2000. He scored 17 league goals in his first season, when Leeds reached the Champions League semi-final, and 20 in 2002/03, including a hat-trick in a 6-1 win at Charlton and the winner at Highbury that kept Leeds up. He stayed for the relegation season and left in July 2004.

Middlesbrough paid £4.5 million. He scored 14 league goals in 2006/07, and in between he played in the 2006 UEFA Cup final, a 4-0 defeat to Sevilla in Eindhoven, having scored six on the way there.

He joined Newcastle on a free in June 2007, Sam Allardyce's first signing. He scored seven in his first season, none in 12 games in his second, and was released in 2009.

For Australia he won 43 caps and captained the side at the 2006 World Cup, where they reached the last 16.

The moment: Liverpool, 4 November 2000

Elland Road, Saturday 4 November 2000, a lunchtime kick-off in front of 40,055. Liverpool were third and had won five in a row. Leeds were tenth, missing about ten players, and lost Jonathan Woodgate to injury after 15 minutes.

Sami Hyypiä and Christian Ziege headed Liverpool two up. Viduka chipped Sander Westerveld on 24 minutes, then headed Gary Kelly's cross in at the near post a minute after half-time. Vladimír Šmicer put Liverpool back in front on 61.

On 73 minutes Viduka turned Olivier Dacourt's pass in for 3-3. Two minutes later he lifted the ball over Westerveld and Jamie Carragher for the winner. Leeds 4-3 Liverpool.

He was the first Leeds player to score four in a game since Allan Clarke against Burnley in 1971. Afterwards he said: "Every time I had a sniff of goal I scored."

Why the streets won't forget

Leeds fans called him the V-Bomber and Big Dukes.

The Mark Viduka Medal has gone to the best player in the Australia Cup final every year since 2014. Melbourne Knights named a stand at their ground after him, and he joined the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2021.

He lives in Zagreb, where he and his wife run a coffee shop.

Which seasons can you draft him in?

Seven, from his arrival at Leeds to his last season at Middlesbrough. His two Newcastle seasons don't make the game's squads.

2002/03 is the one: 20 league goals for £9.0m in a team that finished 15th, so he carried the attack on his own.

Want him in your retro fantasy football team for 2002/03? He'll cost you £9.0m.