Dmitri Alenichev

Dmitri Alenichev

Alenichev managing an Arsenal game in 2014
Personal information
Full name	Dmitri Anatolievich Alenichev
Date of birth	(1972-10-20) 20 October 1972 (age 44)
Place of birth	Melioratorov, Pskov Oblast, Soviet Union
Height	1.71 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)
Playing position	Attacking midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1989	SKIF-Express Velikie Luki	?	(?)
1990–1991	Mashinostroitel Pskov	38	(7)
1991–1993	Lokomotiv Moscow	69	(6)
1994–1998	Spartak Moscow	122	(18)
1998–2000	Roma	28	(2)
1999–2000	→ Perugia (loan)	15	(0)
2000–2004	Porto	84	(12)
2004–2006	Spartak Moscow	21	(3)
National team
1996–2005	Russia	55	(6)
Teams managed
2010–2012	Russia U18
2011–2015	Arsenal Tula
2015–2016	Spartak Moscow
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Dmitri Anatolyevich Alenichev (Russian: Дмитрий Анатольевич Аленичев; born 20 October 1972, Melioratorov, Pskov Oblast, Russian SFSR) is a retired Russian footballer, current coach and politician.

Despite being a Spartak Moscow fan, Alenichev debuted 1991 for Moscow rivals Lokomotiv, where he played four years before moving to Spartak, where in five years he won three Russian leagues and two cups, and was also elected Russian player of the year in 1997. He won a transfer to Serie A side AS Roma, played 21 matches in the first season, but after only seven matches played, he moved to AC Perugia in December 1999. His stint in Italy overall proved to be unsuccessful and he was eventually considered to be one of Italian football's biggest foreign flops.

In 2000, he was bought by FC Porto, where he made a good first impression (scored the tying against Sporting in the Portuguese Super Cup), and made a good first season where Porto captured the Portuguese cup 2–0 against CS Marítimo, Alenichev scoring the second goal. In the following season, Alenichev suffered some animosity from new Porto coach Octávio Machado (the same happened with compatriot Sergei Ovchinnikov) and spent most of the first half of the season sidelined, under the shadow of Deco. As soon as Octávio was fired and replaced with José Mourinho, Alenichev's luck changed. Although he still didn't play in the starting eleven, he was usually the first player to jump from the bench, especially when Mourinho passed from a 4–3–3 to a 4–4–2 formation. A starting player in the UEFA Cup final and mid-game substitute in the Champions League final, Alenichev scored on both: against Celtic he scored the second goal, following a pass from Deco, and against AS Monaco he closed the scoreline with a powerful volley shot following a deflected through cross from Derlei. This made him one of only three players to score goals in two consecutive Cup Finals of different European competitions, the others being Ronald Koeman and Ronaldo.