https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/andrea-orlandi-120644135.html
Yahoo Eurosport
.
Andrea Orlandi's road to European football redemption: From Spain to Cyprus via England and Wales
Having moved from Alaves to Barcelona, Swansea City to Brighton, Blackpool and now Cyprus, the Catalan is now enjoying European football for the first time. He told Andy Mitten about his experiences
Inside Football By Andy Mitten 2 hours ago
I grew up in Sarria, Barcelona, close to Espanyol’s oldstadium where Italy beat Brazil in the 1982 World Cup finals in a famous game. I supported Espanyol as a boy and went to every home match. My highlight was seeingthem beating Cadiz to get promoted. My dad took me close to the bench to seethe players and they seemed like giants.
I still dreamed of playing for Espanyol and was delighted when they signed me as a child. I spent three years there before they told me that I was too small at 13. That hurt, to feel like a dream was being crushed.
I joined Damm, a famous youth team in Barcelona which is third only to Barça and Espanyol. Many players have gone from there to be professionals. At 17, Alaves came to signme. They flew me to Bilbao with my parents and then to Vitoria, the Basque capital. I liked it straight away.
Alaves were ambitious and paying out a lot of money for talent. I signed a five-year contract, made my first team debut at 17 but then there were some big change sat the club. Dmitry Piterman, a very colourful Ukrainian/American business character, took over. The turnover of players was incredible as they wanted an immediate promotion, so it became impossible for a young player to establish himself there.
Barcelona came to sign me on loan. Pulling on that shirt felt odd at first, very odd. I’m Espanyol, the rival of Barça, but I was also a professional footballer. Within a few weeks, I was used to it. Barça is fantastic for a player. Everything is geared towards you concentrating on playing, but competition is so tough for places. I played in a very good B team in the Spanish second division. Not many big names, but a good team. You’re told to play exactly how the first teamplays.
I was doing well and called up for the first team squad at the end of the 2005-06 season for a game at Athletic Bilbao. I flew to Bilbao not expecting to play. Then I saw my name on the board. I was starting. I was overcome with nerves and dehydrated. Samuel Eto’o was on my table. He said: ‘What’s wrong, have you never played left back before?’ Eto’o was good to me, the manager Frank Rijkaard too, but I was still nervous. While warming up, I saw a journalist from Vitoria who I knew from Alaves. I spoke to him and that relaxed me. My family were in the stands. My dad had suspected that I’d play. That didn’t help with my nerves.
Before the game started, Eto’o gave me thisadvice: ‘Nene (young boy), relax and when you get the ball, just get the ball to me.’ Eto’o was crazy, but in a good way. He had another reason for saying this: he needed one goal to win the Pichichi for a team that had already won the league. He scored it, I played well, but we lost, Ludovic Guily gave me his shirt and everyone went home happy. I celebrated with my girlfriend Laura.
Barça wanted to sign me, Alaves didn’t want to sell me. I was messed around before signing back for Barça on another loan at the last minute. I played in the B team with players who were better known: Gio dos Santos, Bojan, Jeffren. We were relegated. At times I did think I had a future at Barça, but the competition was so high.
.Making the call: Robtero Martinez
In any case, I always had the contract with Alaves. Swansea manager Roberto Martinez got in touch with me in 2007. He’d remembered seeing me play for Barça’s first team in a Copa Catalunya match against Espanyol and he got my number from Jordi Cruyff. He invited me to Swansea, then in England’s third tier, to show me around. I was impressed by the stadium and his ideas. He said they wanted to be in the Premier League within four years, but I didn’t think there was any way I could sign for them as Alaves had me under contract and Swansea couldn’t afford a fee for me.
When I returned to Alaves, I found out I didn’t figure in the first team plans. At 11.30pm on transfer deadline day, I joined Swansea. I was paid £1,100 a week, considerabl yless than Alaves. I’d been offered more to play in Greece, but I wanted to play in the English league.
Life was hard at first in England. I didn’t speak English and Swansea is not Barcelona. I had injury niggles too. I worked hard and listened a lot. Like when our Spanish goalkeeping coach, who was also learning English, came in the dressing room and told everyone he was constipated. He meant that he had a cold, which in Spanish is ‘constipato’! At least I had good company, Jordi Gomez, my brother-in-law,was on loan there. We’d also been at Barça/Espanyol together.
I was playing 15 games a season for Swansea and was about to leave for Norwich in 2009. That’s when Paulo Sousa became Swansea manager. My dad is a Juventus fan and Sousa was part of Juve’s Champions league winning side - and Sousa wanted to keep me at Swansea. So I stayed and had a great season playing 31 matches. Sousa left after one season and wanted to take me to Leicester, but new Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers wanted to keep me. So I became part of Swansea’s push for promotion to the Premier League. I was injured towards the end of the season, but it was ok for the club as they had Joe Allen in my position. We went up and I was a Premier League footballer, delighted to have achieved that for the Swansea fans I’d really become fond of.
I played five games the following season. In one, I scored the fastest goal in the Premier League for five seasons against Wolves. The highlight of that 2011-12 season was a win at Aston Villa. I didn’t expect to start but Rodgers said to me: ‘You know how to play football. Go and play.’ I did and loved it. I was gutted to be dropped for a game at home to Arsenal a couple of weeks later.
Brighton & Hove Albion came in for me that summer. That’s where I really felt at home. I becam ea dad there; I was an established first teamer playing every week in a really good side. The Amex was a magnificent stadium and I even had a song! ‘VivaOrlandi,’ they’d sing. ‘Running down the wing, hear the Brighton sing, Viva Orlandi!’ Imagine how you feel when you hear thousands singing your song like that?
There were several Spanish players at Brighton and we all socialised – as did our partners. I loved it and the football was excellent. Under Gus Poyet, we came close to promotion in my first season, but something crazy happened in a play-off against our old rivals Crystal Palace.
The Palace coach driver was ill and desperate for the toilet and didn’t make it in time. As the players later understood, he did a s**t on the floor of the Palace dressing room. He tried to clear it up but made it worse. Palace were outraged when they saw it. That’s all their players needed to see. They were up for it and in our faces from the first minute. We were not.
My second season at Brighton was harder. I started well pre-season then ruptured my meniscus in my knee in the first away game at Leeds. I came back into the team and had some good moments, but I didn’t get a new contract at the end of the 2013-14 season. Again, I was very disappointed, I’d liked Brighton.
I then had a summer of rejections. I wasn’t considered a player who did a lot of running by English clubs who wanted that type of player.
Blackpool came infor me with their new manager Jose Riga. I knew Blackpool had a reputation for being a club with problems, but I wanted to stay in England. I soon found out that the problems were worse inside the club than they seemed from the outside.The training ground was the worst I’d seen while pitch had too much sand on it. There’s plenty of sand in Blackpool.
I stayed in 10 different hotels in a couple of weeks at the start. Some were bed and breakfasts, one had a karaoke in reception and I could hear the guests singing all night. One had a bed which was so hard I got back pain. We had a Costa Rican player who had just played in the World Cup finals. His room was so small that there was only space for his luggage and bed. He was very disillusioned but I tried to help him by setting him up a bank account and getting him a mobile phone.
We travelled to the first game at Nottingham Forest with nine first team players. On the coach, we were told that 13 players had been given clearance to play. I knew that we would have players out of position and I also knew I’d play for 90 minutes, despite no pre-season. We did well to only lose 2-0. We had some good players at Blackpool including Jamie O’Hara and Chris Eagles. The Blackpool fans were brilliant. They deserve so much more than the mess their club has become. Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark. A traditional English manager, he didn’t fancy me at the start. I worked hard and he eventually made me his captain, but we were relegated.
I had a trial at Bolton and went to meet Neil Lennon to sign, but he didn’t turn up. I was told to go back a week later. I thought of calling time on my career, but I got a good offer to play in Cyprus with Anorthosis.
Because I’d been at Barça and in England, I think some expected me to be like Leo Messi. After three weeks when they realised I wasn’t, I felt them lose confidence in me. In January 2016, Anorthosis told me that they wanted me to leave. Then they called me back because the players they’d tried to sign didn’t come off. I finished the season playing well – so well that I was offered a deal with APOEL, the biggest Cypriot club. I think Anothosis fans realised that I’d been treated badly and I was humbled when they applauded me after I played against them for APOEL.
I’m 32, but life is good at APEOL. I’m playing European football for the first time in my career. I went back to Wales when we knocked out Welsh champions New Saints in the Champions League qualifiers. Then we beat the Norwegian champions Rosenborg. Sadly we were were narrowly defeatedby FC Copenhagen in the play off for the group stage. An 86th minutegoal in the second leg did it. Copenhagen were good and drew with Porto in their opening Champions League match.
But we’re in the Europa League and won our first game. The Cypriot fans are passionate, my family (I now have two girls) like it here but there’s no time to relax and goon the beach when you are a professional footballer and that’s fine by me. I’ve had a good career and played in four different countries. In the future I’d like to coach rather than manage, but I feel like I’ve got a few good years left yet.
Such a true gent. It pained me the season he left. Perhaps let's hope for a Calde/Orlandi double team as managers one day?
Yahoo Eurosport
.
Andrea Orlandi's road to European football redemption: From Spain to Cyprus via England and Wales
Having moved from Alaves to Barcelona, Swansea City to Brighton, Blackpool and now Cyprus, the Catalan is now enjoying European football for the first time. He told Andy Mitten about his experiences
Inside Football By Andy Mitten 2 hours ago
I grew up in Sarria, Barcelona, close to Espanyol’s oldstadium where Italy beat Brazil in the 1982 World Cup finals in a famous game. I supported Espanyol as a boy and went to every home match. My highlight was seeingthem beating Cadiz to get promoted. My dad took me close to the bench to seethe players and they seemed like giants.
I still dreamed of playing for Espanyol and was delighted when they signed me as a child. I spent three years there before they told me that I was too small at 13. That hurt, to feel like a dream was being crushed.
I joined Damm, a famous youth team in Barcelona which is third only to Barça and Espanyol. Many players have gone from there to be professionals. At 17, Alaves came to signme. They flew me to Bilbao with my parents and then to Vitoria, the Basque capital. I liked it straight away.
Alaves were ambitious and paying out a lot of money for talent. I signed a five-year contract, made my first team debut at 17 but then there were some big change sat the club. Dmitry Piterman, a very colourful Ukrainian/American business character, took over. The turnover of players was incredible as they wanted an immediate promotion, so it became impossible for a young player to establish himself there.
Barcelona came to sign me on loan. Pulling on that shirt felt odd at first, very odd. I’m Espanyol, the rival of Barça, but I was also a professional footballer. Within a few weeks, I was used to it. Barça is fantastic for a player. Everything is geared towards you concentrating on playing, but competition is so tough for places. I played in a very good B team in the Spanish second division. Not many big names, but a good team. You’re told to play exactly how the first teamplays.
I was doing well and called up for the first team squad at the end of the 2005-06 season for a game at Athletic Bilbao. I flew to Bilbao not expecting to play. Then I saw my name on the board. I was starting. I was overcome with nerves and dehydrated. Samuel Eto’o was on my table. He said: ‘What’s wrong, have you never played left back before?’ Eto’o was good to me, the manager Frank Rijkaard too, but I was still nervous. While warming up, I saw a journalist from Vitoria who I knew from Alaves. I spoke to him and that relaxed me. My family were in the stands. My dad had suspected that I’d play. That didn’t help with my nerves.
Before the game started, Eto’o gave me thisadvice: ‘Nene (young boy), relax and when you get the ball, just get the ball to me.’ Eto’o was crazy, but in a good way. He had another reason for saying this: he needed one goal to win the Pichichi for a team that had already won the league. He scored it, I played well, but we lost, Ludovic Guily gave me his shirt and everyone went home happy. I celebrated with my girlfriend Laura.
Barça wanted to sign me, Alaves didn’t want to sell me. I was messed around before signing back for Barça on another loan at the last minute. I played in the B team with players who were better known: Gio dos Santos, Bojan, Jeffren. We were relegated. At times I did think I had a future at Barça, but the competition was so high.
.Making the call: Robtero Martinez
In any case, I always had the contract with Alaves. Swansea manager Roberto Martinez got in touch with me in 2007. He’d remembered seeing me play for Barça’s first team in a Copa Catalunya match against Espanyol and he got my number from Jordi Cruyff. He invited me to Swansea, then in England’s third tier, to show me around. I was impressed by the stadium and his ideas. He said they wanted to be in the Premier League within four years, but I didn’t think there was any way I could sign for them as Alaves had me under contract and Swansea couldn’t afford a fee for me.
When I returned to Alaves, I found out I didn’t figure in the first team plans. At 11.30pm on transfer deadline day, I joined Swansea. I was paid £1,100 a week, considerabl yless than Alaves. I’d been offered more to play in Greece, but I wanted to play in the English league.
Life was hard at first in England. I didn’t speak English and Swansea is not Barcelona. I had injury niggles too. I worked hard and listened a lot. Like when our Spanish goalkeeping coach, who was also learning English, came in the dressing room and told everyone he was constipated. He meant that he had a cold, which in Spanish is ‘constipato’! At least I had good company, Jordi Gomez, my brother-in-law,was on loan there. We’d also been at Barça/Espanyol together.
I was playing 15 games a season for Swansea and was about to leave for Norwich in 2009. That’s when Paulo Sousa became Swansea manager. My dad is a Juventus fan and Sousa was part of Juve’s Champions league winning side - and Sousa wanted to keep me at Swansea. So I stayed and had a great season playing 31 matches. Sousa left after one season and wanted to take me to Leicester, but new Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers wanted to keep me. So I became part of Swansea’s push for promotion to the Premier League. I was injured towards the end of the season, but it was ok for the club as they had Joe Allen in my position. We went up and I was a Premier League footballer, delighted to have achieved that for the Swansea fans I’d really become fond of.
I played five games the following season. In one, I scored the fastest goal in the Premier League for five seasons against Wolves. The highlight of that 2011-12 season was a win at Aston Villa. I didn’t expect to start but Rodgers said to me: ‘You know how to play football. Go and play.’ I did and loved it. I was gutted to be dropped for a game at home to Arsenal a couple of weeks later.
Brighton & Hove Albion came in for me that summer. That’s where I really felt at home. I becam ea dad there; I was an established first teamer playing every week in a really good side. The Amex was a magnificent stadium and I even had a song! ‘VivaOrlandi,’ they’d sing. ‘Running down the wing, hear the Brighton sing, Viva Orlandi!’ Imagine how you feel when you hear thousands singing your song like that?
There were several Spanish players at Brighton and we all socialised – as did our partners. I loved it and the football was excellent. Under Gus Poyet, we came close to promotion in my first season, but something crazy happened in a play-off against our old rivals Crystal Palace.
The Palace coach driver was ill and desperate for the toilet and didn’t make it in time. As the players later understood, he did a s**t on the floor of the Palace dressing room. He tried to clear it up but made it worse. Palace were outraged when they saw it. That’s all their players needed to see. They were up for it and in our faces from the first minute. We were not.
My second season at Brighton was harder. I started well pre-season then ruptured my meniscus in my knee in the first away game at Leeds. I came back into the team and had some good moments, but I didn’t get a new contract at the end of the 2013-14 season. Again, I was very disappointed, I’d liked Brighton.
I then had a summer of rejections. I wasn’t considered a player who did a lot of running by English clubs who wanted that type of player.
Blackpool came infor me with their new manager Jose Riga. I knew Blackpool had a reputation for being a club with problems, but I wanted to stay in England. I soon found out that the problems were worse inside the club than they seemed from the outside.The training ground was the worst I’d seen while pitch had too much sand on it. There’s plenty of sand in Blackpool.
I stayed in 10 different hotels in a couple of weeks at the start. Some were bed and breakfasts, one had a karaoke in reception and I could hear the guests singing all night. One had a bed which was so hard I got back pain. We had a Costa Rican player who had just played in the World Cup finals. His room was so small that there was only space for his luggage and bed. He was very disillusioned but I tried to help him by setting him up a bank account and getting him a mobile phone.
We travelled to the first game at Nottingham Forest with nine first team players. On the coach, we were told that 13 players had been given clearance to play. I knew that we would have players out of position and I also knew I’d play for 90 minutes, despite no pre-season. We did well to only lose 2-0. We had some good players at Blackpool including Jamie O’Hara and Chris Eagles. The Blackpool fans were brilliant. They deserve so much more than the mess their club has become. Riga was sacked and replaced by Lee Clark. A traditional English manager, he didn’t fancy me at the start. I worked hard and he eventually made me his captain, but we were relegated.
I had a trial at Bolton and went to meet Neil Lennon to sign, but he didn’t turn up. I was told to go back a week later. I thought of calling time on my career, but I got a good offer to play in Cyprus with Anorthosis.
Because I’d been at Barça and in England, I think some expected me to be like Leo Messi. After three weeks when they realised I wasn’t, I felt them lose confidence in me. In January 2016, Anorthosis told me that they wanted me to leave. Then they called me back because the players they’d tried to sign didn’t come off. I finished the season playing well – so well that I was offered a deal with APOEL, the biggest Cypriot club. I think Anothosis fans realised that I’d been treated badly and I was humbled when they applauded me after I played against them for APOEL.
I’m 32, but life is good at APEOL. I’m playing European football for the first time in my career. I went back to Wales when we knocked out Welsh champions New Saints in the Champions League qualifiers. Then we beat the Norwegian champions Rosenborg. Sadly we were were narrowly defeatedby FC Copenhagen in the play off for the group stage. An 86th minutegoal in the second leg did it. Copenhagen were good and drew with Porto in their opening Champions League match.
But we’re in the Europa League and won our first game. The Cypriot fans are passionate, my family (I now have two girls) like it here but there’s no time to relax and goon the beach when you are a professional footballer and that’s fine by me. I’ve had a good career and played in four different countries. In the future I’d like to coach rather than manage, but I feel like I’ve got a few good years left yet.
Such a true gent. It pained me the season he left. Perhaps let's hope for a Calde/Orlandi double team as managers one day?
