Born on this day is Swedish forward Rade Prica. He played only six games for the Lads despite being signed for £2 million.
He was quickly moved on, for a reported profit too within a year. He will always be remembered as the 8th greatest Swede to ever pull on a Sunderland shirt, just behind Ola Toivonen but ahead of Benji Kimpioka and David Moberg-Karlsson.
The striker arrived on Wearside with an impressive scoring record, and had previously been the top scorer in the Danish League. He followed Jean-Yves Mvoto and Phil Bardsley to the Stadium of Light and ranks dead in the middle in terms of influence for the rest of the season. However, that doesn’t mean that the then Sweden international really did anything in a Sunderland shirt. Well, other than scoring on his debut.
Replacing Dwight Yorke at half time, Prica ran himself into the ground with Sunderland already 1-0 up. Latching onto Liam Ridgewell’s mistake, his goal was a professional dink over the onrushing goalkeeper. Prica had the ball in the back of the net again with a very strange finish. It bamboozled the keeper as Prica expertly pretended to go for a diving header in the normal way, cunningly disguising the fact he actually meant to slide it in with another part of his body. The ball trickled in from under the prone Swede’s side and he managed to flick it in with his boot in a move he had perfected in Denmark which he called the ‘flying herring’. Probably. Anyway, the referee ruled it out for handball.
Young and foolish, I was incredibly impressed that this Swedish man had ran around a lot and scored on his debut. From where I sat, it looked like he had scored a perfectly legitimate diving header. He wore the same boots that I wore at Saturday morning football practice. A week ago, I hadn’t heard of Rade Prica and now I wanted his name on the back of my Sunderland shirt. I was gearing up for the Swede to be my favourite player.
Thankfully, I didn’t get his name on the back of my shirt. After this promising start to his Sunderland career, his next appearance made sure that he never started a game of football in England again. Prica entered the pitch after just 7 minutes, coming on for Kieran Richardson. I had seen the Swedish goal machine score two the other week, and thought surely that he would add another couple at least. However, he was hauled off after 56 minutes because of a very, very mediocre performance. The Scandinavian striker never started another match, only featuring in four more matches as a substitute for minimal minutes.
Roy Keane allowed Prica to leave in March 2009 and he returned to Scandinavia with Norwegian club Rosenborg. In Norway, the striker rediscovered his form and became the top scorer in the league in 2009. After leaving Rosenborg, Prica moved to clubs which became gradually more difficult to spell and pronounce in increasingly obscure leagues.
He has played in leagues such as the Tippeligaen, Ligat Winner and Ettan for such teams as Maccabi Petah Tikva and Landskrona BoIS. With Maccabi Tel Aviv, he was a three time league winner, an Israeli State Cup and a Toto Cup winner. He called an end to his distinguished career in 2016.
