Dia was introduced after 74 minutes in the sixth round away at VPS with FinnPa leading 2-0 but did nothing of note as his team won 3-1. Dia's story has been copied and pasted ad infinitum online, but the real story of the Don Quixote of modern football is harder to pin down. Dia was a substitute in Platt's second game against Kettering, but he stayed on the bench. Dia was not even on the bench. Now a social worker in Hamburg, Lorkowski recalls general manager Helmut Schulte brought Dia to VfB Lubeck at the start of the 1995/96 season after also being taken in by the Weah connection. Gary Robson was reputed to be on £400 a week at the Tyneside club, but he had made nearly 300 Football League appearances. With a minute to go, Dia and the Gateshead forward line pressured Bromsgrove's Darren Growcutt into turning the ball into his own net, which resulted in a vital 1-0 win. #SaintsFC http://t.co/W3CSBpQlO9" Ali Dia is a liar... Maybe so, as when our protagonist reappeared, he succeeded in making his top-flight debut...in Finland. Dia was on the bench. Ali Dia is a mystery, a man seemingly happy to let fiction blend with fact. In a 2014 column, he recalled: I spoke with my manager and a couple of other directors, then—deciding no one could take Dia at his word—I phoned the police on the south coast and the hotel where our intrepid international footballer had hung his hat. The deal was not for playing but for spending 87 hours a month working with the club's youth teams, and worth 3,030 French francs a month (around £343 today). After an opening 45 minutes in which he was described by Helsingin Sanomat as "invisible," Dia was subbed a minute into the second half. 'It was my fault and I was the player who was substituted for probably the worst ever player in the Premier League.'. 'More and more players got injured as the week went on (so we don't have the numbers for a game). First of all, let's get his name straight. In our more linked-up world, the crazy tale of Ali/Aly Dia seems unlikely to occur again in the English Premier League, but maybe it could elsewhere. With eight minutes to go, he came on but made no impact in a 0-0 draw. 'When he turned up on the Saturday and he was sat in the changing room, I thought, “Wow, that’s a pretty great competition, he’s going to give the team talk!”. In his last appearance, Dia was part of a winning team. He did so again on his Gateshead debut. Matt will know we had loads of trialists in. 'This guy turns up. Dr. Ali Dia frequently sees patients for Back Pain, Chiropractic Consultation, Knee Problems, Pain Management Consultation, and Sports Injury. Speaking on Sky Sports, he said: 'It’s a great story and a funny story but it’s not quite what you read or hear. In the 1997/98 season, Gateshead's reserve team manager Alan Shoulder told Gibson that a player approached him in the club car park asking to join in training with a view to a possible trial. Weah was a good man to invent connections with. Then, once again, Dia vanished. 20 years after he made a 53-minute appearance for Southampton in the Premier League, the story - and whereabouts - of Ali Dia have remained a mystery. But his dreams seemed to flounder. This time, he started. Fans blast 'atrocious' £14.95 pay-per-view service on BT Sport Box Office with NO pre-game build-up,... Chelsea 3-3 Southampton: Frank Lampard's defence crumbles AGAIN as the hosts twice throw away the lead with... Everton 2-2 Liverpool PLAYER RATINGS: Thiago Alcantara passed the Toffees to death on first start while... 'He has the quality to bring us one step forward': Granit Xhaka hails £45m signing Thomas Partey having... 'That's a leg-breaking tackle.... it's a career ender': Virgil van Dijk hobbles off injured after HORROR... 'How bad is this?' Steve Finnan is selling his 2005 Champions League winner's medal for at least £12,000 as well as matchworn Liverpool shirts after former defender's property development business 'goes into liquidation', 'What happened is really a disgrace': Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani launches attack on Manchester United and Liverpool over Project Big Picture and warns rest of Premier League 'need to strongly defend' against elite power grab, How Ole Gunnar Solskjaer could shake up Manchester United (if he's brave enough! 'We knew within five minutes of training he was not very good, but it’s a good story.'. By November, Richardson was being described in print as "beleaguered" by the Gateshead Post. But he never gave up. His former team-mates at both clubs remember a private man. You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. That’s how we got Eyal Berkovic. Join Facebook to connect with Ali Dia and others you may know. But if things go well, who knows, I could stay longer.". "Dia showed good pace and marked his debut with a late goal having already provided the assist for Paul Thompson to register his 13th goal of the campaign," the Gateshead Post reported as Bath City were hammered 5-0 at home. Dia bullishly told the Post: "I have been portrayed as a con man and a poor player, but I am neither and intend to prove people wrong. Graham Hiley, then a young reporter at the Southern Daily Echo, recalled: "I watched him in training, and I remember thinking he would not be signed as he did not look good enough and thought no more about him until I got to the ground. His moment had arrived, and Dia certainly made his mark. Pleasant surprise: nice chat in cafeteria @UniHannover with Michael Lorkowski, coach @Hannover96 cup winner team 1992 http://t.co/WRwjdvmFQF. On Nov. 22, Southampton received international clearance from the English Football Association for Dia, a manouvere made easier by his French wife. In his fourth match, Dia played the full 90 minutes and had two good chances to score but missed. "It was unbelievable. They have portrayed me as a liar and that is bull," Dia told Bleacher Report. Two decades after perpetrating one of football's most brazen stunts by persuading Graeme Souness to let him play in the Premier League for Southampton, precious little is known about the man who purported to be the cousin of George Weah, the legendary former AC Milan player who won the Ballon d'Or in 1995. It is a story that has passed into footballing folklore and now Ali Dia's former manager Graeme Souness and team-mate Matt Le Tissier have revealed the … 'About 20 minutes into the game I went to whip a ball in, overextended and tore my thigh muscle. "Aly went to his mother's funeral, to France or Senegal, I don't know. Can Said Benrahma buck the trend for creative West Ham players who fail to live up to the hype?

That proved rare, but Dia did start FinnPa's next match away to FC Jazz. Was Mrs. Dia too, like his relationship with Weah, a figment of Dia's imagination? He never talked of himself or his life, just that he had a wife in France," Valakari said. Back on the bench, Dia got on after 81 minutes but again to little effect. Dia was on a similar amount after one Premier League appearance. His name is plastered across the Internet. Richardson needed a hero. That is certainly possible. Matt Le Tissier laughed about it all and said he thought Dia had been a competition winner, Le Tissier hitting a strike towards goal during a match against Manchester United in 1996. That he had played at the top level. Ali Dia is a mystery, a man seemingly happy to let fiction blend with fact.

In Dia's absence, Platt had revived Gateshead. Not a fortune, but Dia was a semi-professional footballer. "I did play for Paris Saint-Germain, in the second tier, in 1986-88. He reportedly graduated from Northumbria University, as per the Scotsman, with a degree in business or finance in 2001, but he has since achieved the almost impossible feat of completely vanishing. My contract is just until the end of the season. But if you had any belief in yourself, you would react badly. Other players would have just told me to f--k off.". "That must be his lucky day, then later he was incredible (sic) bad," says Lorkowski, who, briefly taken in by that five-goal haul, selected his new striker on Matchday 5. After arriving in England, Dia sought out trials at a number of clubs, including Gillingham. With one of football's most mysterious figures celebrating his 50th birthday this year, Bleacher Report went in search of the Ali Dia legend, and in search of the truth... Ali Dia. "He must have been on at least £400 a week as he was paying me rent and always paid that," said his agent Harrison. Data Protection laws prevent the university from passing on details about Dia or even confirming that he has a degree from there, but in 2012 (before those laws were enacted), the university told FourFourTwo magazine they had lost touch with him. 'Sergeant Koeman' has restored training methods used by treble-winning bosses Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique as he demands greater intensity from Barcelona and has already earned the respect of the players... even Lionel Messi! Dia made his FinnPa debut in the first round of Veikkausliiga matches at Haka on April 30, 1995. The Senegalese Football Federation did not respond to questions about Dia or Alassana. FinnPa lost 3-1. He made amends by scoring with a header, but Gateshead lost 3-2, and Richardson was fired. So is this really a mystery that's impossible to solve? The next day, the Sunday Mirror exposed Dia's long con and how he had tried the Weah trick on Bournemouth, Gillingham and Port Vale. He started the next two matches after being unmasked but did not score against Hednesford or Stalybridge. Gateshead had recently won promotion to the GM Vauxhall Conference, but despite the presence of Gary and Justin Robson, the two younger brothers of England legend, Bryan Robson, life in the top tier of the English non-league game was difficult.

Matt was our only fit forward.

African players were becoming increasingly prevalent in France, particularly those from former French colonies. With the outside of his right foot, he could go round a defender," former team-mate Simo Valakari told Bleacher Report. "Yes, he was telling those stories [about George Weah] then," former FinnPa team-mate Kalle Lehtinen said. Those four clubs did not respond to questions about Dia, but in December 1993, Aly Dia did sign a contract with AL Chateaubriant to play in National League Three, which is equivalent to the fifth tier of French football. Dia scored once in three matches, then left. But Senegal never played Guinea—they were knocked out in the first round of the 1998 World Cup qualifiers by Togo. So he contacted Harrison, who ran a business called Activity Sportswear and worked as an agent. Read our community guidelines in full, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, Ali Dia made his one and only appearance in the Premier League in 1996, Ali Dia was understood to have been George Weah's cousin, Southampton manager Graeme Souness gave Dia a trial with the club, Ali Dia got his one and only appearance after replacing Matt Le Tissier as a substitute, Manchester City vs Arsenal, Premier League: live score and latest updates, Furious Jurgen Klopp accuses VAR of costing Liverpool victory in Merseyside derby: 'It's getting harder to take'. Dia was brought on as a substitute at the Dell before being hauled off just 53 minutes later after failing to impress, despite managing to register one shot on target. He is constantly swamped with CVs of African players of dubious provenance. He lived on the Boulevard Victor Hugo, and club chairman Michel Bonnier told Bleacher Report that Dia played regularly in the A and B teams in 1993/94. Dia then dropped into the non-league game at Blyth Spartans, where he first met Peter Harrison, later a notorious football agent but then the Northern Premier League club's manager. Did he know about the Mirror story? After leaving Southampton Dia had a short spell at north East non-league club Gateshead before moving into business. 'Someone at the club gets a call that George Weah’s cousin or nephew wanted a trial. (Scout) Terry Cooper said we had to have Ali Dia on the bench. The man who called up and fooled Souness was called Sidiba Alassana. In autumn 1995, Dia arrived in Germany at VfB Lubeck.



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