Marians Pahars (born 5 August 1976) is a Latvian professional football manager and a former player.
As a player, he spent the majority of his career operating as a striker for English club Southampton, where he played in the Premier League and the Championship, the latter of which he played during his final season for the club. Furthermore, he had two spells at Skonto in the Latvian Higher League. He also made 75 appearances for the Latvia national team, scoring 15 goals over an eleven-year period.
Having retired from football, Pahars entered a career in coaching, starting as assistant at Skonto, which resulted in his first appointment as a manager. He went on to manage Latvia at under-21 and senior level, before returning to club management with Jelgava.
His Latvian given name is Marians; however, he was generally known as Marian during his career in England.
Pahars broke into the Latvia national team at the start of 1996, and made his debut on 12 March 1996 in a 1–0 friendly defeat away to Cyprus. His first goal for his country came in his ninth match at home to Poland in a 3–2 defeat also in a friendly on 17 February 1997.
On 2 September 2006, he returned to the Latvia national team for a match against Sweden. All in all, he played 75 times and scored 15 goals for Latvia.
Despite Latvia not qualifying for the World Cup Finals they did have success in June 2001 when they beat Estonia and Lithuania, to lift the Baltic Cup, with Pahars scoring in both games. Pahars was then named Latvian Footballer of the Year for a third successive year in November 2001.
During a spell of injuries, he managed to play in the closing minutes as Latvia claimed a place in the European Championships in 2004 with a 2–2 draw in Turkey on 19 November 2003.
He again struggled for full fitness, before scoring his first goal for Latvia in a 3–1 friendly win over Kazakhstan on 18 February – his first international goal since May 2002.
With so many injury problems over the season, he was a substitute for all three of 2004 UEFA Latvia's Group matches at Euro 2004, although he did taste the championships by coming off the bench in all three games.
Pahars was a candidate for Honoured to serve Riga in the 2020 Riga City Council election, but was not elected.
English Premier League 2 Goals 2000-09-16 | English Premier League 2 Goals 2000-08-26 |
1995-1999 |
1996-2007 |
1999-2006 |
2006-2008 |
2008-2009 |
2010-2011 Assistant Manager |
2011-2012 Manager |
2013-2013 Manager |
2013-2017 Manager |
2018-2019 Manager |
2020-2020 Assistant Manager |