Darius Vassell

Darius Vassell
Personnel
Surname	Darius Markus Vassell
birthday	June 13, 1980
place of birth	Birmingham ,  England
size	170 cm
position	striker
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1998-2005	Aston Villa	162 (35)
2005-2009	Manchester City	95 (17)
2009-2010	MKE Ankaragücü	22 0(4)
2010–2012	Leicester City	43 0(6)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2002-2004	England	22 0(6)
1 Only league games are given.

Darius Martin Clarke Vassell [ dəˈraɪəs ˈmɑːtɪn klɑːk vəˈsel ] (born June 13, 1980 in Birmingham ) is a former English football player of Jamaican descent.

Player career

Vassell played as a winger for Manchester City in the English Premier League . He has also been a member of the English national football team since 2002 . Due to his quick start, Vassell is an ideal substitute against an already tired opposing defense.

He grew up in the south of the town of Sutton Coldfield, in Wylde Green , and initially played in the Birmingham Boys League before the talent scouts of the Birmingham-based Aston Villa club accepted him into the youth department at the age of thirteen. The tech-savvy Vassell managed an extraordinary performance with 39 hits in the 1996/97 season.

In April 1998, Vassell, who is relatively small at 1.71 meters, signed his first professional contract with Aston Villa. In the first season he made his debut in the Premier League as a substitute against Middlesbrough FC . His first climax came in the first round of the UEFA Cup when, after being substituted on in the 81st minute, he fell 2-1 down against Norwegian guest Strømsgodset IF with two goals in stoppage time to make it 3-2 - Victory converted.

Although he was already used in the U18 and U21 national team at that time , Vassell had to wait more than two years for the breakthrough in his club before he then his first two premieres in the 3-0 win against Bradford City in February 2001 League goals scored. In the subsequent 2001/02 season, he then formed a very strong storm duo with the Colombian international Juan Pablo Ángel and scored a total of 16 goals. In addition, he was used in February 2002 by Sven-Göran Eriksson in the friendly match in Amsterdam against the Netherlands for the first time in the English national football team, where he replaced the injured Michael Owen from the start. Vassell scored the only goal for his team in this game at 1-1. This very successful season ended with three missions during the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea .

The positive trend Vassell could not continue in the subsequent seasons 2002/03 and 2003/04, however, scored only eleven and ten goals and always had to struggle with minor injuries that made it difficult for him to confirm his previous form. He continued to play for the national team and was substituted on in all four England games during the 2004 European Championship in Portugal . The negative highlight and end of the season was his missed penalty in the quarter-finals against Portugal , when he failed to Ricardo . Since then, he has not been called back to the English national team.

During the tenth matchday of the 2004/05 season Vassell moved against Fulham a fracture of the ankle to, was sidelined four months and came into the championship round total of only two hits. On his return, the injury was not fully healed and only after an intensive medical examination, Vassell moved to Manchester City for two million pounds at the beginning of the 2005/06 season and signed a contract there until the end of the 2008/09 season.

From July 2009 to May 2010 he played for the Turkish club MKE Ankaragücü . Then Vassell was without a club until October 2010, before he signed with the English championship participant Leicester City .

Others

• Vassell is an avowed Christian . He justified the fact that he had survived a car accident a few years earlier with his religious beliefs.

Web links

• Darius Vassell in the database of weltfussball.de
• Darius Vassell in the soccerbase.com database
• Photo by Darius Vassell