Career
Born in Zagreb, Marić began his professional career at Dinamo Zagreb in 1992. In the autumn of 1998, he appeared for Dinamo Zagreb in all of their six group matches in the Union of European Football Associations Champions League and secured himself a move to English side Newcastle United on 4 February 1999 for a transfer fee of $5.8 million. He made his Premier League debut for Newcastle United on 10 March 1999 against Nottingham Forest, but never managed to establish himself as a regular at the club and, after making 23 Premier League appearances without scoring a goal, went on to move to Portuguese side Porto in 2000.
During the final, with Newcastle trailing 2-0, Marić weakly shot past the post when exceptionally well placed to score.
This summed up his Newcastle career in general. After playing one season for Porto, where he also never managed to become a regular, he made his first comeback to Dinamo Zagreb and subsequently spent two seasons with the club before making another move abroad, to Greek side Panathinaikos in 2003.
He subsequently spent two seasons at Panathinaikos and also managed to make nine Union of European Football Associations Champions League appearances for the club before making his second comeback to Dinamo Zagreb in 2005, signing a two-year contract. However, with his role in the team largely diminished and the fact that he mostly appeared as a substitute, he cancelled his contract upon the end of the 2005-2006 season and thus finished his playing career.
In his three spells with Dinamo, he appeared in a total of 146 league matches and scored 41 goals.
Between 1995 and 1997, he also made several appearances for the Croatian national under-21 team His last appearance for the Croatian national team came on 12 October 2002 in their second Euro 2004 qualifier, which they lost 2-0 to Bulgaria on the road.