The legendary Štefan Škaper scored 130 goals in 1. “I was invited by Dinamo, Rijeka, Hajduk, Sturm…”
226 matches, 130 goals. In the first Slovenian football league. But although Štefan Škaper was a proven goalscorer, he never played abroad. He scored goals in different times. Nowadays, it’s enough for someone to give 10, 20, and clubs are offering millions for them… In the 1990s, when Štefan Škaper reigned supreme, things were very different. It was difficult to break out of the Slovenian league to play abroad, and the popular Pef played for a club that paid its players handsomely for quite some time.
When Viktor Ketler, a local businessman from Beltince, was the boss of the club, there was a lot of milk and honey. This was one of the reasons why Štefan Škaper did not feel an overwhelming desire to go abroad at any cost.
“To be honest, the offers were too modest, but in Beltinci we had very good salaries for the Slovenian situation. I’ve been invited by Dinamo, Rijeka, Hajduk, Sturm in Austria, also from Belgium. But the pay would be quite similar to Slovenia, and I already had a family and one child. If I had been a few years younger, I would have at least tried, but I didn’t want to risk anything. I was already 29 years old and thinking differently, so after the break-up of Beltinci I returned to Mora. The consumer withdrew from the contracts, Ketler left and so did I,“, the 56-year-old Štefan Škaper, who is the second all-time leading scorer in the history of the Slovenian league, explained to Delo today.
On average, every other match
Only Marcos Tavares, who scored more goals as a member of the
Maribor
scored 159 times. But it’s interesting to note that he needed “436 games” to achieve his goal, while Škaper scored 130 goals in 226 games. The statistics show that Štefan Škaper scored on average in every second game!
Despite all the above, Štefan Škaper, as mentioned, has never played abroad, even in the jersey of Slovenian national team and has played only four matches for the Slovenian national team. “I only appeared in the national team because of public pressure, and the selector Zdenko Verdenik was forced to call me up. Well, he later apologised to me, saying that he had made a mistake for not giving me more chances to play,“, added the retired footballer from Beltince to Delo.
This text was automatically translated using AI.
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