Ilyos Zeytulayev ( uz, Илёс Зейтулаев, born 13 August 1984) is an Uzbek retired

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

or as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

. He is currently the head coach of Italian amateur club San Salvo. Zeytulayev has spent most of his career in the Italian

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie Balkrishna Industries, BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 ...

and

Lega Pro Prima Divisione Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1. Before the 1978� ...

(formerly Serie C1). His first name is sometimes spelled Illyos, or Ilyas (Cyrillic: Ильяс), the latter of which is the Russian equivalent. Moreover, Zeytulayev is also romanized as Zeytulaev.

Club career

Zeytulayev started his professional career in the

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

youth teams along with

Serhiy Kovalenko Serhiy Viktorovych Kovalenko ( uk, Сергій Вікторович Коваленко; born 10 May 1984) is a Ukrainian retired footballer who played as a midfielder or forward. Career Early career Serhiy Kovalenko started his youth career at ...

and

Viktor Budyanskiy Viktor Igorevich Budyansky (or Romanization as Boudianski (russian: Виктор Игоревич Будянский, born 12 January 1984) is a retired association footballer who played as a midfielder. He last played for Italian club Udinese. ...

, making him the first Uzbekistani player to play in Italy. He signed a 5-year contract on 10 August 2001. He joined Juve permanently in February 2002 along with Kovalenko after a loan from Sportakademklub Moscow, the team he played since he was 13. The

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

club paid US$400,000 (about €454K) to buy the duo's image and registration rights. He also played both legs against

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

in the

Coppa Italia 2001–02 The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, located at (). The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. juri ...

Reggina and various loans

After graduating from the U20 team in June, along with

, they were unable to register as a Juve players. At first,

FIGC The Italian Football Federation ( it, Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio; FIGC), known colloquially as ''Federcalcio'', is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the technical department is in Coverciano, Florence. It ...

declared that their remaining 2-year contracts did not fulfill the regulations and voided them. The FIGC declared that they had been on youth contracts which could only run for a maximum of 3 years. In addition, a non-EU player at that time could not sign a contract extension. Thus they were released. However, after an appeal, the appeal community stated that a foreigner could sign a professional contract regardless his age, and FIGC regulations only protected domestic youth products who can only sign a contract for more than 3 years after the age of 18. They were transferred to

Reggina Reggina 1914 S.r.l., commonly referred to as Reggina, is an Italian football club based in Reggio Calabria. Founded in 1914, they currently play in Serie B, and play their home matches at the 27,763 seater Stadio Oreste Granillo. They are nic ...

for €1K to co-own the players in January 2005, He played in his first Serie A match on 19 March 2005, coming on as a substitute for

Marco Borriello Marco Borriello (; born 18 June 1982) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a striker. Throughout his career, Borriello played for several Italian clubs, including Treviso, Triestina, Milan, Empoli, Reggina, Sampdoria, Geno ...

in the 75th minutes against his first club Juve. The match ended in a 0–1 loss. In June 2005, Juventus bought back Budyanskiy for €0.5K, while Reggina signed Zeytulayev permanently for the same price. After not playing in the

2005–06 Serie A The 2005–06 Serie A (known as the Serie A TIM for sponsorship reasons) was the 104th season of top-tier Italian football, the 74th in a round-robin tournament. The league commenced on 28 August 2005 and finished on 14 May 2006. While Juventus w ...

, in January 2006 he was loaned out to Serie B side

Crotone Crotone (, ; nap, label= Crotonese, Cutrone or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Calabria, Italy. Founded as the Achaean colony of Kroton ( grc, Κρότων or ; la, Crotona) in Magna Graecia, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until ...

. In 2006–07 season, he was loaned out again, this time to

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

and

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a th ...

of Serie B (as an exchange with

Ivan Castiglia Ivan Castiglia (born 6 January 1988) is an Italian footballer who plays for Serie D club Giulianova. Club career Castiglia returned to Reggina from Cittadella in the winter transfer season of 2010. On 31 August 2013 he was re-signed by Vicenza ...

Lega Pro Prima Divisione

In July 2007, he left for

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

of Serie C1. But after a poor season, he left for

Pescara Pescara (; nap, label= Abruzzese, Pescàrë; nap, label= Pescarese, Piscàrë) is the capital city of the Province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It is the most populated city in Abruzzo, with 119,217 (2018) residents (and approxim ...

on a free transfer. There, he became a regular member of the team. In August 2009, he signed a 3-year contract with

Lanciano Lanciano (; nap, label= Abruzzese, Langiàne ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Chieti, part of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. It has 36,304 inhabitants as of 2011. The town is known for the first recorded Catholic Eucharistic ...

as a free agent. In his first season, he only made 14 league appearances, but in 2010–11 season, he started a successive 5 league games for the team, as one of the strikers in a 4-3-3 formation, along with

Luís Gabriel Sacilotto Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

to partner with

Umberto Improta Umberto Improta (born 29 February 1984) is an Italian former footballer who played as a forward. His younger brothers Giancarlo and Riccardo Improta were also professional footballers. Club career Born in Naples, Campania, Southern Italy, Im ...

Francesco Di Gennaro Francesco Di Gennaro (born 5 December 1982) is an Italian footballer who plays as a forward for Metapontino. Career Early life Born in Naples, Campania, Di Gennaro started his senior career at Serie D (Italian fifth division until 2014) club ...

Late career

In January 2014 Zeytulayev was signed by

Torino F.C. Torino Football Club (), commonly referred to as Torino or simply Toro, is an Italian professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont. They currently play in Serie A. Founded as ''Foot-Ball Club Torino'' in 1906, Torino are among the mos ...

However, the signing was aiming solely to exploit the mechanism of the non-EU signing of the league. On 4 February 2014 Zeytulayev joined Croatian club

HNK Gorica Hrvatski nogometni klub Gorica ( en, Croatian Football Club Gorica), commonly referred to as HNK Gorica or simply Gorica, is a Croatian football club based in the town of Velika Gorica, located just south of the Croatian capital Zagreb. They pl ...

in a temporary deal. In the same window Torino signed

Marko Vešović Marko Vešović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марко Вешовић; born 28 August 1991) is a Montenegrin professional footballer who plays as a right wing-back for Qarabağ FK and the Montenegro national team. Club career Early career Born in what i ...

from Serbia. In 2015 he moved back to Italy, joining

Eccellenza The Eccellenza (, "excellence") is the fifth level (since 2014–15) of Italian football. It is a regional league, composed of 28 divisions divided geographically. All 20 regions are represented by at least one division except for Piedmont and Ao ...

amateurs Cupello, also becoming a youth coach for the team.

International career

Zeytulayev has been capped for Uzbekistan U20 team in the

2003 FIFA World Youth Championship The 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship took place in United Arab Emirates between 27 November and 19 December 2003. U20 Brazil claimed their fourth title. The 2003 championship was the 14th contested. The tournament was originally planned to be ...

. He also played for the

Uzbekistan national football team The Uzbekistan national football team ( uz, Ozbekiston milliy futbol terma jamoasi, italic=yes / ) represents Uzbekistan in international football and is controlled by the Uzbekistan Football Association, the governing body for football in Uzbe ...

in the

2002 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification competition was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America ...

2004 AFC Asian Cup The 2004 AFC Asian Cup was the 13th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international association football, football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It was held from 17 July to 7 August 2004 in China. ...

and

2007 AFC Asian Cup qualification The 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualification was held in late 2005 and the final qualification round was held from February to November 2006 with 25 nations participating. For the first time, the defending champions (Japan), did not earn an automatic ...

. He was named in the squad for friendlies before

2007 AFC Asian Cup The 2007 AFC Asian Cup was the 14th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held from 7 to 29 July 2007. For the first time in its h ...

in March 2007. In March 2009, he was recalled to national team for the

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification Qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (O ...

in March 2009 but did not play.

Coaching career

After retiring as a player, Zeytulayev settled down in

Abruzzo Abruzzo (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Abruzzese Neapolitan, Abbrùzze , ''Abbrìzze'' or ''Abbrèzze'' ; nap, label=Sabino dialect, Aquilano, Abbrùzzu; #History, historically Abruzzi) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy wi ...

, the region of origin of his Italian wife, and kept working as a youth coach for Virtus Vasto. In August 2021 he was unveiled as the new head coach of

Promozione The Promozione (, "promotion") is the sixth level in the Italian football league system. Each individual league winner within the Promozione level progresses to their closest regional league in the Eccellenza level. Depending on each league's lo ...

Abruzzo amateurs San Salvo.

Career statistics

International statistics

References

External links

Virtus Lanciano prifile

Profile at La Gazzetta dello Sport (2006-07)

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zeytulayev, Ilyos Uzbekistani footballers Uzbekistani expatriate footballers Uzbekistan international footballers 2004 AFC Asian Cup players Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Expatriate footballers in Italy Juventus F.C. players Reggina 1914 players F.C. Crotone players Genoa C.F.C. players L.R. Vicenza players Hellas Verona F.C. players Delfino Pescara 1936 players S.S. Virtus Lanciano 1924 players HNK Gorica players Expatriate footballers in Russia Uzbekistani expatriate sportspeople in Italy Uzbekistani expatriate sportspeople in Russia Association football midfielders People from Tashkent Region 1984 births Living people