One of the more interesting players in this year’s team is Ahmed Lakra. I saw him play for the first time in the practice tournament in Virelä just over a week ago. I was immediately convinced that he was a great addition to the team. Playing at the crucial center back position, his size and ability to read the game are exceptional for this level. He made no mistakes in that tournament, playing the full 150 minutes that the team played there, and even in Saturday’s loss against the clearly superior KaVo team he was one of the best players on the field.

After the match in Virelä I got a ride back to the city in the same car as Ahmed. He seemed to be very excited about playing for TamU-K and even asked a team-mate, Juhis Pietilä, who was also in the car ”Isn’t it nice to play in this team?” That really stuck with me, and I realized we had struck gold with this guy.

Later the following week an interesting feature on Ahmed Lakra appeared on the club web site in Finnish. Right then I realized just how great of a story we have with this player. I learned that he had grown up in Morocco and never played in any sort of organized football before coming to Finland. ”I lived in a small coastal village and played beach football, volleyball, and surfed. In the summer I worked as a life guard, so I basically did everything that you can do on a beach.”

Last year Ahmed played for FC Valencia and FC Tampereen Star Team in the same recreational league that TamU-K participated in. This turned out to be very fortunate for TamU-K, as this is where Ahmed learned that there is going to be a team in the lower divisions that has actual supporters and a community around it. In the winter TamU-K announced that they are looking for ṕlayers and Ahmed did not hesitate to offer his services.

”Playing for my former teams was good, but that was it. There was no community feeling there. Rather, it was just a group of guys coming together for a match. When we played against TamU-K I saw how the supporters and players fed off of each other and created an excellent atmosphere. This is exactly what I have been missing.”

Ahmed has a bit of an unusual playing style. When he wins the ball downstairs, he rarely gets rid of the ball immediately, but rather keeps possession of the ball to himself and uses any open space to move up. At times he dribbles past opponents all the way to a position to get a shot on goal. Especially in the matches in Virelä, where the pitch is a bit smaller than regulation size, Ahmed created many dangerous goal-scoring opportunities this way.

”The manager has given me free reign in moving up when the opportunity arises. Of course these must happen in a controlled manner, which means that somebody else needs to move in to cover my spot.”

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Ahmed can do this season. Against the tougher opponents he may have to stay back at defense for the most part, but I expect that in some matches he will absolutely destroy the opponent. And of course his defensive abilities are such that he will frustrate many an opponent this season, no matter how good they think they are. Personally I cannot wait to see that.

And as a supporter of Tampere United, I take immense pride in the fact that what we have created off the field has a very real effect on our ability to attract good players. Sources within the team tell me that Ahmed is not the only one who feels this way, and rumor is that there may be some quotes on that in the Finnish part of this site very soon. Translations and commentary will of course follow here in the blog.