Marian Pahars
Marian Pahars (born 5 August 1976 in Riga) is a Latvian football player. He is a striker for Southampton in the English Premiership and the Latvia national team. His Latvian given name is Marians; however, most football media have internationalized his name as Marian since he began playing in England (in the same way that Ruud van Nistelrooij became known as Ruud van Nistelrooy).
He started his professional career with Skonto FC in his hometown of Riga, and was transferred to Southampton in March 1999, becoming the first Latvian to play in English Premier League. Pahars soon made an impact for the Saints, most notably scoring a pair of goals in the club's last match of the season against Everton, securing their status in the Premiership for the following season.
Over the next several years, he was a solid goal-scoring threat for the Saints. However, he underwent a hernia operation in the summer of 2002, struggled to regain his fitness, and then severely injured an ankle in November 2002. Pahars had two operations on the ankle, and did not return to action for about a year. Late in the 2003-04 season, he began to show some flashes of his former form, and became part of Latvia's Euro 2004 campaign.
