Universitario de Sucre 4-3 Oriente Petrolero, 20/09/14

My first experience of Bolivian Premier League action turned out to be an absolute thriller.

Universitario de Sucre´s ground is a 32,000-capacity bowl, with standard running track round the outside. Sadly, only around 5,000 managed to make it for this game, so the ground looked rather empty, and the corwd did not make much noise.

The game started slowly, and the standard seemed to be alarmingly low at first. However, Universitario soon settled in the game and their Spanish forward Nacho Rodriguez hit the post from distance. Pastor Torrez missed some good chances, but then headed home from a corner to make it 1-0 to the home team. Almost immediately after the restart, he cut it back for his strike partner Rodriguez, who hit the post again.

Universitario´s front four of Rodriguez, Torrez, Mauricio Saucedo and Claudio Mosca looked quite lively. Mosca was playing particularly well. The young Argentine is fast, skillful, two-footed and unselfish. He provided some excellent crosses and passes for team-mates.

Universitario continued to dominate, and after a wonderful passing move, the Petrolero tipped over a shot from distance which seemed destined for the top corner. At this stage, Petrolero had only threatened on the break, and although Quiñones had got through on goal twice, he was let down by his finishing. The score remained 1-0 at half-time.

A Universitario free-kick was followed by several minutes of pushing and shoving, for which only one Oriente player was booked. Shortly afterwards, Diego Rivero cut in from the left hand side and curled a wonderful shot in to the top corner to make it 2-0. However, Oriente gave themselves a chance with a goal from nowhere. The impressive Matias Garcia played an excellent through-ball, which was smashed past the keeper by Ignacio Martinez. Unfortunately for Petrolero, this was met by another goal at the other end. Rodriguez did superbly to beat several defenders and get to the by-line. He cut back superbly for Saucedo, who tapped in to the empty net.

With 10 minutes left, Garcia played another excellent pass to Quiñones. The referee decided that he was fouled by Jorge Cuellar, who received a second booking for the offence. Quiñones took the resulting penalty and put it in the top corner after a stuttering run up. On 87 minutes, Petrolero somehow found themselves level at 3-3 after the referee gave another penalty, presumably for handball. The keeper may have got a hand to the penalty, but Omar Jesus Morales struck it with enough power for that to not matter. At this stage, Universitario had taken of their two main attacking threats in Rodriguez and Mosca and looked like they may have to settle for a point. However, from a free-kick in the 93rd minute, someone in the Petrolero wall handled, and Universitario got a penalty of their own. Saucedo dispatched the kick to send the small crowd home happy.

It was a great game for a neutral like me, especially as it cost about £2.50 to get in. With 7 goals, a punch-up, 3 penalties and a last minute winner, it gave tremendous entertainment. The standard was higher than I had expected and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance of Claudio Mosca. I might return to watch some more Bolivian football...

Mr. Hat-Trick!

This isn't massively Alex-related but it's an interesting story, nevertheless. While listening to the podcast of this week's BBC World Service's World Football programme this morning, I unexpectedly heard a name I'd buried somewhere deep in the back of my mind. The headline mentioned an Irish footballer who was playing in Iran, which I found interesting enough, and it was followed by a clip of (presumably) Persian commentary, in which I made out the name Éamon Zayed.

I knew I'd heard this name somewhere but it took me some time to remember where. In case you can't remember (which seems quite likely), Zayed was a young Irish forward who came to Crewe Alexandra on loan in January 2004 from Bray Wanderers. He was highly rated and had already represented Republic of Ireland at under 21 level. He'd just been on trial at Everton, Dynamo Moscow had invited him to train with them and parts of the press had linked him with Barcelona (honestly!).

I've no idea why it didn't work out for Zayed at Crewe, but he never played a single game in England. He was talked up quite highly when he joined, Dario seemed quite keen to sign him permanently (he was already talking publicly about compensation). For whatever reason, he never did get a first team chance and returned to Bray at the end of the season.

In 2013, Zayed is a full international with Libya and plays for Iranian side Aluminium Hormozgan. I don't think many would have seen that coming from a 20 year old Irish triallist... When he returned to Ireland from his unsuccessful spell with the Alex, he played for Drogheda United (where he was the club's top scorer as they won the league), Sporting Fingal and Derry City and scored loads of goals for all three clubs.

By this point, Zayed had made the decision to abandon his ambitions of playing for Ireland and accepted an offer to join up with Libya (who he qualified for through his father). It was while playing for Libya that he attracted the attention of one of the biggest clubs in Iran; Persepolis (which also the title of one of my favourite films of recent years).

He soon joined up with the club but didn't feature for them very often at first, he made only one substitute appearance in his first few weeks in Iran. But he wasn't to be held back for long...

The Tehran derby between Persepolis and Esteghlal is a huge deal in Asia. It is said to be the biggest in the continent and attracts crowds of over 100,000. This is the game in which Zayed made his second substitute appearance for his new club. Before he was able to get onto the pitch, his team had gone 2-0 down and been reduced to ten men, but Zayed managed to convert a one-on-one after 82 minutes to give Persepolis some hope. In the next 10 minutes he changed his life forever by equalising with a header before turning and shooting to complete his hat-trick and hand his side a quite ridiculous victory. You can watch his goals below, check out how crazy the supporters go after the third.

 

After this, he was awarded Goal.com's world performance of the week and he earned the quite brilliant nickname of 'Mr. Hat-trick' from Persepolis fans, and the club's supporters seemed to really love him. He was quoted as saying:

At the stadium the whole place went mad. I’ve never seen anything like it. On the bus players were coming up to me kissing me, hugging me, telling me that I didn’t realise what I had just done.

Following this, he was often stopped by grateful fans who wanted to buy him dinner, give him cash gifts or even invite him to their weddings as a special guest. I guess Iranians care deeply about this beautiful game of ours.

This was not his only hat-trick for Persepolis either; he scored one in an Asian Champions League game and one in another league game. Unsurprisingly, he was soon given a contract extension. However, in what is becoming a common theme in Zayed's career, he has since been forced to leave due to his club's financial problems (this is also why he left both Drogheda and Fingal) but has stayed in Iran by signing a short team deal with the brilliantly-named Aluminium Hormozgan.

 He's not the only ex-Crewe loan player to be in the Middle East either, Madjid Bougherra followed money to sign for Qatari side Lekhwiya. If you know of any other former Crewe players who ply their trade in similarly exotic places, I'd love to hear about it.

I got much of my information from this excellent backpagefootball article by Conor Clancy. The BBC interview is available here or on iTunes.

We're Crewe Alexandra, we're non-league at heart

As any Crewe Alexandra fan can tell you, no matter how good we are as a football team, the organisation of the club has, on the large part, been remarkably amateurish. From the tat sold in the club shop to the total reluctance to do any sort of initiatives to try and get more fans through the gates (this point has improved slightly over the last 2 or 3 years - but nowhere near enough), we just don't act like a professional football club. Crewe Alexandra Supporters Initiative have helped a great deal in recent years - particularly in helping to improve the Alexandra Suite, but I just don't think it's something that the club should be relying on the fans to sort out.

Anyway, here are just a few examples of just how non-league we are at heart.

1. Hand-written tickets



This is my ticket from the Morecambe home game last season. OK, I understand that ticketing systems can break down occasionally, but is that really the best alternative that they can come up with? Really?

2. year 7 projects



The above bit of rubbish clip art comes from the pre-match offers menu in the Alexandra Suite. The front of the menu looks quite decent and almost professional - a sober black font with the Crewe Alexandra badge. It's when you open it up that the horrors start. At the top is the dreadful clip art picture of a drunken sun (I think..), then this followed by the offers themselves. I don't have a picture right now, but they are written in red, yellow and green. They are an absolute nightmare for the eyes. There is another bit of horrible clip art on the back. Altogether, it just looks like the result of some sort of Year 7 school project - the only real surprise is that it isn't done in comic sans.

3. Last season's kit and the general tat in the club shop (link)

Anyway, these are just 3 of many examples of rank amateurism at our club. I love Crewe Alexandra and I'm not criticising anything on the playing side here, but I would be so happy if they at least made an effort to give the impression of having competent people working on the commercial side.

My Alex Heroes #1 - Shaun Smith

Things are a bit quiet at the moment, while we wait for Byron Moore and ClayDo to confirm that they will be leaving and Dario can get on with signing some replacements. With that in mind, I decided to look back into the past a bit...

Shaun Smith was never one of the more talented players in any of the teams he played in. He was quite slow, not actually particularly good at defending and often looked hugely out of his depth in the second tier. His set-pieces could be spectacularly wayward and the same applies to his general distribution. He'd often pick the ball up at left-back and be more likely to land the ball in the television gantry than at the feet of our left-winger. So why do I remember him so fondly? Well, here's why...

He was a virtual ever-present at left-back (and often captain) of some of the best Crewe teams in living memory. He arrived from the mighty Emley in 1991, shortly after The Alex were relegated back to the basement division. He ended up playing over 400 games for the club, including 5 years in the second tier. He also scored some of the most memorable goals in the history of the club, including what is probably the most important. You could always guarantee that Smith would not be a player to play at anything less than full effort. While certain players never lived up to their obvious potential - he, like the Paul Collingwood of lower-league football, made sure that he absolutely made the most of his somewhat limited ability.

His set-pieces could be disastrous, as anyone who saw him hit penalties and free-kicks out of the ground could testify. However, like Laurent Robert, the spectacular success when he got it right made all the terrible dross almost worthwhile. His ridiculous 35-yard free-kick in our first visit to the Britannia Stadium remains one of my greatest moments as a Crewe fan. Another one that springs immediately to mind is a lovely free-kick curled into the top corner against Q.P.R. to rescue a point - a match in which we were 2-0 down with about 10 minutes left. That draw saw us pretty much safe and went some way to confirming Rangers' relegation. And he scored from the half-way line against Brentford. It was miles better than Beckham's similar goal.

I love that Dario insisted that Smithy was our penalty taker for years, even though it was obvious that he wasn't the best player at the club at taking penalties.

I loved watching him really go through a player when tackling. Crewe players are not hard, they do not do this. Smith was hard and Smith did. And the most remarkable thing is that Dario didn't seem to mind. I remember him getting sent-off for elbowing a Rotherham player in the face - a crime which Dario seemed to forgive him for quite quickly. The last-ditch, goal-saving slide tackle became his speciality. His timing, for some reason, was perfect when he had to charge 20 yards across the pitch to get there. It's a shame that he struggled to stop right-wingers from getting past him in the end.

I love that he stood on the ball and fell over when trying to control a simple pass at Goodison Park in the FA Cup fifth round. This was live on BBC and would've been the only time he ever played in a match screened on terrestrial television.

And I've not even mentioned the goal yet.

A little over 14 years ago, on May 25th 1997, Shaun Smith took the field at Wembley against Brentford in the Division Two (3rd tier of English football, now called League 1, confusingly) play-off final. Crewe had not played in the second division since the introduction of a third division. A few years earlier, they could only have dreamed of doing so again. Smith had been the unlikely hero in semi-final - scoring the crucial goal to ensure that it would be Crewe, not Luton, making the trip to Wembley. Surrounded by high-fliers like Murphy, Adebola, Johnson, Whalley and Rivers, it seemed unlikely that he would be repeating his heroics. Brentford though, were sick of the sight of him. Although we finished below them in the league, we had done the double over them - and Smith had scored in both games. He scored a penalty and Gresty Road and his goal from inside his own half came in the league match at Griffin Park. Of course, it was Smith who was in the right place in the 6 yard box to score the only goal at Wembley too. The Alex were in dreamland.

It was fitting that Smith was the scorer. He was a proper lower-league footballer. He seemed to be a thoroughly decent bloke - certainly not the prima donna that many people picture when they think of the modern footballer. He's the sort of old-fashioned footballer who supporters could easily relate to. He seemed like one of us and appreciated how lucky he was to play football for a living for a few years. I'd be surprised if he ever caused any problems for Dario.

Smithy went on to play in the Championship for 5 years. Towards the end of his Alex career, he looked hugely out of depth and his already erratic set-pieces became more and more unreliable. However, in his penultimate season with the club, the year in which Dean Ashton and Rob Hulse emerged as real forces, he pulled out some superb performances. Again he was in the team with other players destined for greater things, but somehow ended up walking away with all the Player of the Year awards. With his typical modesty, he claimed this was down to a sympathy vote as he'd never emerged with personal awards in the past. There may have been a certain element of truth to this, but he did earn the awards with his performances in the second half of the season. Sadly, his performances declined again the following season, and after the Alex were relegated, he was released. He signed a 3-year contract with Jan Mølby's Hull City. Like Mølby, he did not last long at Hull though, and after a couple of loan spells, he had equally unsuccessful spells at Rochdale and York before drifting out of football.

He did, of course, come back with Steve Macauley (more on him later, maybe) for hugely-deserved joint-testimonial matches against Everton and Liverpool.

Shaun Smith. An Alex legend.