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 Latvian 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. Club career Skonto Born in Chornobai in Ukraine of Latvian parents, Pahars grew up supporting Spartak Moscow. When he was about 8 years old, Jurijs Andrejevs, a coach from Skonto visited his school, as a result of which Pahars decided to play football. Andrejevs was to have a major influence on Pahars’ football career. At 18 he signed for Pardaugava Riga moving on to Skonto Metāls and then into the Skonto first-team in 1995. He started playing as a midfielder, usually on the wings, before moving into a striker's role. His best goal ratio came in 1995 when he scored 8 in 9 games, which he followed up with 12 in 28 games the following season, as he became a regular in the Latvian national team. In his prime he was dubbed the "Latvian Michael Owen". In the 1998 season he scored 19 goals in 26 games for Skonto, and his progress was attracting attention from bigger clubs; he had trials with Salernitana (Italy), Werder Bremen (Germany), and Casino Salzburg (Austria), but he was recommended to Southampton's manager Dave Jones by Gary Johnson - the manager of the Latvian national team. Southampton He had a trial in a reserve team match against Oxford United on 10 February 1999 in which he scored a perfect hat-trick – a header and a goal with each foot in a 7–1 victory. Saints agreed a fee with Skonto of around £800,000 and despite difficulties in obtaining a work permit and objections from the PFA, these problems were overcome