Stan Lazaridis (born 16 August 1972) is an Australian former professional soccer player. He was predominantly a left winger though he was known to perform at left-back. He notably played for Birmingham City and West Ham United and made 58 official appearances for Australia and was in the Australian 2006 FIFA World Cup squad.
In 2024, Lazaridis was appointed director of football at Perth Glory.
His reputation as a young left-footed teenager began with Olympic Kingsway where, despite his age, he intimidated many a defender with his change of pace.
Lazaridis made his senior debut for West Adelaide Hellas in the Australian National Soccer League in the 1992 season. His dribbling ability and pace drew much attention on the Australian scene. At the end of the 1995 season he earned a move to Europe when West Ham United manager Harry Redknapp encountered Lazaridis playing for West Adelaide during West Ham's pre-season tour of Australia in May, 1995. He signed for £300,000; a poor debut and consistent injury problems made his debut season difficult when he made only six appearances. He scored his first goal for West Ham in a 1–1 away draw with Wimbledon on 18 March 1997. Over four seasons, Lazaridis played just 87 games for West Ham United and scored three goals. In 1999, he dropped a division to sign for Birmingham City when manager Trevor Francis signed him in a deal worth an eventual £1.7 million. Settling much better at St Andrew's, he played an important role in guiding the team up to the Premiership for the 2002–03 season, scoring one of the penalties in the play-off final shootout to help them get promoted to the Premier League. While at Birmingham he played in the 2001 Football League Cup Final.
Following promotion (and despite a raft of new signings) Lazaridis remained a regular player for the Blues, scoring the winner against local rivals Aston Villa in March 2003 and a classic goal against Everton in February 2004. After seven successful years at Birmingham City, in which he had become a fan favourite, Lazaridis was released at the end of the 2005–06 season after making 222 appearances for the club. He then looked to finish his career in Australia with A-League club Perth Glory.
Lazaridis made only 11 appearances for the Perth club in 2006–07. His time there was tainted when in January 2007, Lazaridis returned a positive drug test for anti-androgen Finasteride, a prescription alopecia medication, which was banned at the time. Although perhaps slim comfort to Lazaridis finasteride was removed from the banned list in large measure as a result of the widespread discontent that followed his unfortunate case becoming public.
While noting his previous good character and making clear there was no evidence he had taken performance-enhancing drugs, he was found to have breached the rules and was given a 12-month suspension from football, mostly backdated. In March 2008, Perth Glory manager David Mitchell cut Lazaridis from the club's A-League roster, prompting the player to retire.
Lazridis made his debut appearance for the Australia national team in 1993 as they played Kuwait. He has 60 international appearances for the Socceroos and has one goal which he scored against Cook Islands. He played a major role in four world cup campaigns and was in the Australian squad at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.
He was on the field playing as left winger for the infamous 2–2 draw between Australia and Iran, in Melbourne during 1998 World Cup qualifying. The game was the second leg of home and away games between Oceania and Asia for the right to play at the 1998 France World Cup. The first leg was played in Tehran, Iran in front of approximately 128 thousand people, and was a 1–1 draw. Iran went to the World Cup as they scored twice in Australia, and therefore won the tie overall on the ‘at the time’ away goals rule. Thanks FIFA. Lazaridis was also part of the Australian squad at the 2000 Sydney Olympic games.
Football League First Division play-offs: 2002
Football League Cup runner-up: 2000–01
FIFA Confederations Cup: runner-up, 1997; 3rd place, 2001
Stan Lazaridis at National-Football-Teams.com