{"id":2163,"date":"2017-03-20T17:05:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T08:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2017-03-20T17:06:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T08:06:32","slug":"8-high-profile-footballers-played-southeast-asian-football-leagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2017\/03\/20\/8-high-profile-footballers-played-southeast-asian-football-leagues\/","title":{"rendered":"8 high-profile footballers who have played in Southeast Asian football leagues"},"content":{"rendered":"

South East Asian countries’ top football divisions may not be well known around the globe, but that didn’t prevent international stars to come and play there.<\/p>\n

Here’s the list of eight international stars who played for Southeast Asia leagues.<\/p>\n

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1. Mario Kempes (Argentina)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A prolific goalscorer, at club level he is best known for playing for Valencia, finishing as La Liga’s top goalscorer twice, and scored 116 goals in 184 league games for the club.<\/p>\n

At the\u00a0international level, Kempes was the main inspiration for Argentina’s 1978 World Cup win where he scored twice in the final, and received the Golden Boot as top goalscorer. He also won the Golden Ball for the player of the tournament, making him one of only three players to have won all three awards at a single World Cup.<\/p>\n

In 2004 he was named as one of the Top 125 greatest living footballers as part of FIFA’s 100th-anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n

Kempes was a player-manager for\u00a0Pelita Jaya\u00a0(now known as Madura United FC) in Indonesia for the 1995-96 season, scoring 12 goals in 18 league matches.<\/p>\n

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2.\u00a0Roger Milla (Cameroon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The former Monaco, Saint-\u00c9tienne and Montpellier striker achieved international stardom at 38 years old by scoring 4 goals at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, thus helping Cameroon become the first African team to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Four years later, at the age of 42, he became the oldest goalscorer in World Cup history by scoring against Russia in the 1994 World Cup. Milla also won two consecutive African Cup of Nations in 1984 and 1988.<\/p>\n

Roger Milla spent his last two playing years in Indonesia, where he first joined Pelita Jaya\u00a0(now Madura United FC) in the 1994-95 season and scored 23 goals in 23 matches. He later switched to\u00a0Putra Samarinda and made 12 appearances for the club, scoring 18 goals.<\/p>\n

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3. Denilson (Brazil)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Denilson spent the majority of his 16-year professional career with S\u00e3o Paulo and Real Betis \u2013 being the world’s most expensive player when he signed for the latter in 1998 for 21.5 million pounds.<\/p>\n

The gifted winger achieved international successes with his home country, winning the 1997 Copa America, 1997 Confederations Cup, and 2002 World Cup, as well as finishing runners-up in World Cup 1998. He gained 61 caps for Brazil in total and scored 8 goals.<\/p>\n

Denilson joined Vietnamese side Hai Phong FC for $5.5 million in early June of 2009,\u00a0which made him the V.League 1’s highest-paid player in its history. He made his debut on June 21 against Hoang Anh Gia Lai FC, scoring a free kick just two minutes into the game. However, Denilson left after only three weeks with the team, with only that single appearance to his credit due to injury.<\/p>\n

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4. Robbie Fowler (England)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Known for being a natural scorer with an instinctive goal-poaching ability,\u00a0Fowler is best remembered for his time at Liverpool and is the sixth-highest goalscorer in the history of the Premier League. The English striker also spent two years at Leeds United and three years at Manchester City.<\/p>\n

Fowler scored 128 Premier League goals for Liverpool in 266 appearances and was part of the Liverpool team that won the infamous cup treble (League Cup, FA Cup, UEFA Cup) in 2001.<\/p>\n

On 7 July 2011 Fowler signed a one-year contract with Thai outfit Muangthong United.\u00a0After the sacking of Henrique Calisto as head coach, Fowler was made player\/manager for the club. Fowler played 13 matches in total for Muangthong, scored 2 goals before returning to England and retire.<\/p>\n

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5.\u00a0Pablo Aimar (Argentina)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A technically gifted and creative attacking midfielder,\u00a0Aimar excelled as an advanced playmaker. Compatriot Lionel Messi even stated in 2002 that Aimar was one of his biggest influences as a player. Aimar went on to represent his home country 52 times and played in the 2002 and 2006 World Cup.<\/p>\n

After starting his senior career at River Plate in 1996, he amassed La Liga totals of 215 games and 32 goals over eight seasons with Valencia and Real Zaragoza between 2001 and 2008. Aimar then spent five years in Portugal with Benfica, winning nine major titles between the three teams.<\/p>\n

Aimar joined Malaysian club\u00a0Johor Darul Ta’zim in 2013 and\u00a0became the highest paid player ever to feature in the Malaysia Super League.\u00a0He ultimately made 8 appearances for the club and scored two goals before a series of injuries resulted in him being released on 21 April 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aimar earned a champions medal for his time with Johor Darul Ta’zim as the club went on to win the title at the end of the season<\/p>\n

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6. Daniel Guiza (Spain)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A late bloomer, Guiza made a name for himself at the age of 27, being crowned La Liga top scorer with Mallorca. Subsequently, he helped the Spanish national team win Euro 2008.<\/p>\n

Over the course of eight seasons, Guiza amassed Spanish top division totals of 141 games and 52 goals, mainly with Mallorca and Getafe.<\/p>\n

In November 2012, Guiza\u00a0signed for Malaysia Super League side Johor Darul Ta’zim on a season-long loan. At the time of his signing, the Spaniard was the most prolific footballer to have competed in the league.<\/p>\n

Guiza made 13 appearances in all competitions for Johor Darul Ta’zim, scoring 8\u00a0goals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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7.\u00a0Pierre Njanka (Cameroon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cameroonian striker\u00a0previously played for RC Strasbourg, CS Sedan and FC Istres in the French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. Njanka was part of the Strasbourg team that won 2001 Coupe de France Final against Amiens SC.<\/p>\n

Njanka played for Cameroon at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, as well as the 2004 African Nations Cup. He has been capped 47 times for his country<\/p>\n

Pierre Njanka spent multiple seasons in Indonesia, playing for\u00a0Persija Jakarta, Arema FC, Atjeh United, Mitra Kukar, Bali United. He scored 15 goals 117 appearances in total for the five clubs.<\/p>\n

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8.\u00a0Nastja Ceh (Slovenia)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Slovenian was best known for his time at Club Brugge, where he played 101 games and scored 24 goals to help the club win two league titles in the 2002-03 and 2004-05 seasons. Ceh is also a three-time Belgian Cup winner (2001\u201302, 2002\u201303, 2003\u201304) and four-time Belgian Supercup winner (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) with Club Brugge.<\/p>\n

He later moved to Austria Wien, where he won the double (league and domestic cup) in the 2005-06 season.<\/p>\n

After spending time in Greece, Croatia, and Israel, in April 2012 Ceh signed for PSMS Medan (ISL) of the Indonesia Super League. He made 18 appearances and scored 6 goals for the club.<\/p>\n

Ceh joined Vietnamese side Thanh Hoa in the following season and played an important role at the club, scoring 15 goals in his 39 matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South East Asian countries’ top football divisions may not be well known around the globe, but that didn’t prevent international stars to come and play there. Here’s the list of eight international stars who played for Southeast Asia leagues. 1. Mario Kempes (Argentina) A prolific goalscorer, at club level he is best known for playing for Valencia, finishing as La Liga’s top goalscorer twice, and scored 116 goals in 184 league games for the club. At the\u00a0international level, Kempes was the main inspiration for Argentina’s 1978 World Cup win where he scored twice in the final, and received the Golden Boot as top goalscorer. He also won the Golden Ball … Continue reading “8 high-profile footballers who have played in Southeast Asian football leagues”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":2179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[537,535,533,534,536,95],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-southeast-asia","tag-denilson","tag-mario-kempes","tag-pablo-aimar","tag-robbie-fowler","tag-roger-milla","tag-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}