Alexandros Tzorvas
 |
|||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Alexandros Tzorvas | ||
| Date of birth | 12 August 1982 | ||
| Place of birth | Athens, Greece | ||
| Height | 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)[1] | ||
| Playing position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Club information | |||
| Current club | Genoa | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Panathinaikos | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 2001–2007 | Panathinaikos | 1 | (0) |
| 2001–2003 | → Agios Nikolaos (loan) | 25 | (0) |
| 2003–2004 | → Markopoulo (loan) | 11 | (0) |
| 2004–2005 | → Thrasyvoulos (loan) | 6 | (0) |
| 2007–2008 | OFI Crete | 24 | (0) |
| 2008–2011 | Panathinaikos | 59 | (0) |
| 2011–2012 | Palermo | 11 | (0) |
| 2012– | Genoa | 1 | (0) |
| National team‡ | |||
| 2003–2005 | Greece U-21 | 1 | (0) |
| 2008– | Greece | 16 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 17 March 2013. † Appearances (Goals). |
|||
Alexandros Tzorvas (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Τζόρβας) (born 12 August 1982) is a Greek goalkeeper playing for Genoa and the Greece national football team.
Club career
Early career
Ηe began his career as a member of the renowned (domazos academy) Panathinaikos football academy but, despite his potential, he found it hard to make the first team as the more experienced Antonis Nikopolidis, Konstantinos Chalkias and Stefanos Kotsolis provided more than full cover for the goalkeeping position. Due to the strong competition, and as the team laid hopes on him for the future in the next 4 years, he was loaned to the affiliated teams of Agios Nikolaos, Markopoulo and Thrasyvoulos in order to gain experience.
In 2005 Panathinaikos recalled him from loan as a cover for Mario Galinović and Pierre Ebede.
OFI Crete
A lack of first team opportunities led to his trade to OFI with Orestis Karnezis – a hot goalkeeping prospect too – following the opposite path. A string of very good performances made him quickly a starter for the team from Crete even though his transfer was looked critically by OFI fans mainly because of what they see as one sided "colonial"-style agreements that their team is signing with Panathinaikos. In 2008, Tzorvas became the Second Greek Best Goalkeeper behind the legendary Antonis Nikopolidis.
Return to Panathinaikos
During the 2008–09 season, Panathinaikos recalled him from OFI with Arkadiusz Malarz taking the opposite way. Although Mario Galinović was considered the first option for the goalkeeper position for the 2008–2009 season, Tzorvas had his chances already in October being in the starting eleven for a few games for the Greek Superleague and the UEFA Champions League.
For the 2009–2010 Super League season, beginning from the match against Aris Thessaloniki F.C., he is considered a basic choice for the goalkeeper position, mainly due to bad performances by teammate Galinović.
Tzorvas is a die-hard fan of Panathinaikos. Once, in a game against Olympiakos at Karaiskákis Stadium, he went in front of the partisan opposition fans and kissed the shamrock badge on his shirt.
Italy
On 26 August 2011 he moved to Italy, joining Serie A club Palermo; the player agreed a two-year contract with the club and will wear the No. 33 jersey for the Sicilian club, replacing Salvatore Sirigu who left weeks earlier in order to join Paris Saint-Germain FC.[2] He debuted in rosanero on 11 September 2011, in the match won 4–3 against Inter in Serie A. Originally hired as starting goalkeeper, he fell out of favour with head coach Devis Mangia following some unimpressive performances and ultimately lost his place to Francesco Benussi. He was confirmed as second choice also by Bortolo Mutti, who replaced Mangia as Palermo boss in December, and then clearly relegated on the bench after Palermo opted to sign promising Italian international Emiliano Viviano during the January 2012 transfer window.
In the summer 2012 he moved to Genoa, together with youth team striker Daniel Jara Martínez, in an exchange deal that took Swiss defender Steve von Bergen at Palermo.[3] On 17 March 2013, Alexandros Tzorvas made his Genoa debut away to Fiorentina. http://au.soccerway.com/matches/2013/03/17/italy/serie-a/acf-fiorentina/genoa-cfc/1351535/?ICID=HP_MS_02_04
International career
On 21 March 2008, Otto Rehhagel called Tzorvas as third choice goalkeeper for the friendly against Portugal on 26 March at Frankfurt, Germany.[4] After the retirement of Antonis Nikopolidis from the national team, Tzorvas became the second goalkeeper for Greece. He made his senior international debut for Greece on 19 November 2008 in a friendly match against 2006 FIFA World Cup champions Italy at the Karaiskákis Stadium in Piraeus.
One of Tzorvas's greatest career accomplishments to date came in Greece's 2009 home-and-away World Cup playoff with Ukraine. Tzorvas turned away the Ukrainian attack for the entire 180 minutes over ties in Athens and Donetsk, sustaining the Greeks' 1–0 aggregate victory that sent the team to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
At the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he was the starting goalkeeper in all three group matches, beating off competition from Kostas Chalkias and Michalis Sifakis.
References
- ^ http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/players/player=209121/index.html
- ^ "TZORVAS: "PALERMO, SVOLTA PER LA MIA CARRIERA"" [TZORVAS: "PALERMO, KEY MOVE IN MY CAREER"] (in Italian). US Città di Palermo. 26 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
- ^ "VON BERGEN E' ROSANERO TZORVAS E JARA MARTINEZ AL GENOA" [VON BERGEN IS ROSANERO; TZORVAS AND JARA MARTINEZ TO GENOA] (in Italian). US Città di Palermo. 20 August 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
- ^ Rehhagel rewards in-form Tzorvas
External links
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
