Brendon Santalab

Brendon James Santalab (Croatian: Šantalab; born 9 September 1982) is an Australian professional football player who plays as a striker for A-League club Perth Glory. Outside of football, Brendon is the Co-Founder and Director of My Game Guru. The world’s first Grassroots sports tracking app for planning and locating sports games.

Club career
He originally started out as an apprentice at Parramatta Power before moving to Sydney United under the tutelage of Branko Culina. At the end of the 2003–04 National Soccer League season, he moved to K.V. Oostende in the Belgian First Division. After a brief stint, he moved to another Belgian First Division club, K.Sint Truidense V.V. before moving to Hungary for a six-month period with Újpest FC. On 23 June 2007, Santalab was signed by A-League club Sydney FC on a two-year contract, thus reuniting him with Branko Culina.

Santalab made 23 appearances for Sydney FC between 2007 and 2009, scoring four goals. During a game against Adelaide United, Santalab scored a goal from outside the box, that curled into the top corner – a goal that was later ruled the 2007–08 season A-League goal of the year. He scored another goal against Adelaide in the 2008–09 season at the Sydney Football Stadium, when he took a shot from 35 metres out, that slammed into the top corner. Sydney won the match 3–0. His fourth goal came during Sydney's 2–1 upset loss against Perth Glory.

On 14 November 2008, it was announced that Santalab had signed a two-year contract with then-new A-League side the North Queensland Fury for the 2009–10 season. It was announced by North Queensland, that Chinese Super League club Chengdu Blades may make an offer to him, before the start of the season. North Queensland accepted an offer from Chengdu on 21 July. He scored 9 goals during his 12 appearances with the Chengdu Blades.

In 2012, Santalab signed with Chongqing Lifan for one season before signing with the A-League Western Sydney Wanderers.

Santalab scored his first goal for Western Sydney Wanderers in the 7th round of the 2013–14 A-League season, losing to Brisbane Roar 3–1 at Suncorp Stadium.

On 14 May 2014, in the Asian Champions League game against Sanfrecce Hiroshima with 5 minutes to go, Santalab scored the equalising goal that sent Western Sydney Wanderers FC into the quarter finals of the AFC Champions League.

In the 16th round of the 2014–15 A-League season during a home game at Penrith Stadium against Wellington Phoenix, Santalab scored the second goal in a 2–0 win for his first of the season.

During Santalab's five seasons with the Western Sydney Wanderers he was awarded the Western Sydney Wanderers Player of the Year in the 2016/17 and received two of the Club's Golden Boot Awards in 2015/16 and 2016/17. He is also the Western Sydney Wanderers highest goal scorer of all time.

In June 2018, Santalab signed a one-year deal with Perth Glory, reuniting with former coach and mentor, Tony Popovic.

Club

 * Western Sydney Wanderers
 * AFC Champions League: 2014

Individual

 * Western Sydney Wanderers Golden Boot Winner 2015/2016
 * Western Sydney Wanderers Player of the Year: 2016–17
 * Western Sydney Wanderers Golden Boot Winner 2016/2017