Jaouad Zairi

Jaouad Zairi

Personal information
Full name	Jaouad Zairi
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	attacking midfielder
Team information
Current team	Asteras Tripolis
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 23 June 2006

Jaouad Zairi (Arabic: جواد الزاري) (born 1982 in Taza, Morocco) is a Moroccan footballer currently playing for Asteras Tripolis of Greece.

Personal life

Zairi was born into a large family in the city of Taza, central Morocco. As a young school boy he dreamt of playing football for the national team of Morocco, while being a huge fan of Diego Maradona. He would be found playing football with his friends till late hours, upsetting his parents. In 1997 a scout for the French team FC Gueugnon was very impressed by Zairi's skills and took him to France.

Football career

He joined the French Ligue 2 team FC Gueugnon at the age of 15. In the summer of 2001, he joined FC Sochaux as a striker and has a contract with them through 2008. Unhappy with the amount of play time he was getting under manager Domenica Bijotat, he was entertaining talks with Lyon as well as several Saudi teams. In January 2006 he was loaned to the Saudi giants Al-Ittihad for 800,000 US dollars, but was released back to Sochaux due to his wish no longer to stay in Saudi Arabia.

Currently, he plays for the Greek team Asteras Tripolis which plays in Super League Greece.

Notoriety

He gained particular notoriety within Morocco due to his performance over the course of the African Nations Cup in 2004 when Morocco made it to the finals but lost to their North African rivals Tunisia. His skills remind many football commentators and analysts of Cristiano Ronaldo. He is often compared with him because of having the same style of playing and wearing the same shirt number. He is a regular forward (particularly right wing) on the Morocco national football team.

External links

• Official Site
• Moroccan Football