Alain BOGHOSSIAN

It is in Alain Boghossian's destiny to play in sea-cities teams: in fact he played with Marseille, then with Napoli and now it is Genova time (with Sampdoria).He was born 28 years ago in Digne, a little town on Provence Alps; Still a child he had a vocation for football but his parents weren't happy about it. When Alain was 15, Cannes called him, but his father, considering him too young, forbade him to accept. However he still kept on receiving so many offers that he decided to move to Marseille even if he had not finished his studies yet. There he played for 3 years in the local juvenile football school.

In 1992 Alain went to play to Istres professional team (serie B) and after only one year he came back to Marseille to play with the first team. The team was good, but judiciary problems dismantled it pushing its players to go somewhere else. The same happened to Alain, who moved to Napoli. There he immediately found his feet, but only after 9 games he had his knee broken : Alain's season was over. The next two seasons he luckly stayed healthy and emerged as a pivotal midfielder.

In summer '97 he was acquired by Sampdoria as a free agent. There he found his estimator Boskov who had already coached him in Napoli. Sampdoria proved to be the ideal atmosphere to play football, so that he was even called from his national team; and now he is likely to be one of the 22 players who will go to France'98 World Championship.

Playing with Sampdoria he often scores by sudden incursions from the midfield where he forms a very thick dike with Veron and Franceschetti.