Paul Peschisolido
Personal information
Full name	Paolo Pasquale Peschisolido
Date of birth	25 May 1971 (1971-05-25) (age 38)
Place of birth	Scarborough, Canada
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Playing position	Striker
Club information
Current club	Burton Albion (manager)
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1990–1991 1991–1992 1992–1994 1994–1996 1996 1996–1997 1997–2001 2000 2001 2001 2001–2004 2004–2007 2007–2008 2009	Kansas City Comets (indoor) Toronto Blizzard Birmingham City Stoke City Birmingham City West Bromwich Albion Fulham → Queens Park Rangers (loan) → Sheffield United (loan) → Norwich City (loan) Sheffield United Derby County Luton Town St Patrick's Athletic Total	43 (16) 66 (19) 09 0(1) 42 (15) 97 (24) 05 0(1) 05 0(2) 05 0(0) 79 (16) 90 (20) 04 0(0) 00 0(0) 445 (114)
National team2
1992–2004	Canada	53 (10)
Teams managed
2009–	Burton Albion
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14 October 2009. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 14 October 2009. * Appearances (Goals)

Paolo Pasquale Peschisolido, commonly known as Paul Peschisolido and nicknamed Pesch (born 25 May 1971) is a retired Canadian professional footballer who played as a striker.

In May 2009 he was appointed manager of Burton Albion. He has played for several English Football League sides and 53 times for the Canadian national team, scoring 10 times. Peschisolido has proved to be a popular player with supporters, becoming a crowd favourite at all the clubs he has played at.^[1]

[edit] Club career

[edit] Early years

Born in Scarborough, Ontario, Peschisolido began his professional playing career when still a high-schooler with Archbishop Denis O'Connor Catholic High School in Ajax. He led the team to OFFSA finals in his last year then moved on as a trainee with the Toronto Blizzard of the Canadian Soccer League. He also played the 1990–91 Major Indoor Soccer League season with the Kansas City Comets, being named the league's 'Newcomer of the Year'.

[edit] Birmingham City

An unsuccessful attempt to join Juventus saw him offered the opportunity from his former national youth team coach Tony Taylor to join Birmingham City for £25,000 in November 1992.^[2] He played for two seasons at Birmingham, 1992–93 and 1993–94.

[edit] Stoke City

In August 1994 he moved on to Stoke City in a £400,000 plus player exchange deal involving Dave Regis.^[2] He remained at Stoke for the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons. Pesch returned to City for a brief spell at the end of 1995–96, scoring once in nine appearances.

[edit] West Brom

Peschisolido signed for West Bromwich Albion in a £600,000 deal in July 1996. He made his first appearance for the club in the 3–1 home League Cup defeat to Colchester United on September 3, 1996. Four days later, Peschisolido scored just nine minutes into his Albion league début, as the Midlands side ran out 2–0 winners at QPR.^[2]

[edit] Fulham

After 51 appearances and 21 goals for West Brom, he dropped down a division to join Fulham in October 1997, for a £1.1 million transfer fee. He appeared 37 times for 'the Cottagers' in 1997–98, scoring 13 goals and helping the team win promotion as Division Two champions.^[2] In 1998–99 he made 40 appearances, scoring 10 times. In 1999–2000, Pesch scored seven in 36 games.

After appearing in two League Cup matches for Fulham in 2000–01, Peschisolido was loaned out to Queens Park Rangers in November 2000.^[3] He scored on his QPR début, in a 1–1 draw against Portsmouth,^[4] forming a little and large partnership with Peter Crouch with a one foot height difference between them. In January 2001 he went on loan again, this time to Sheffield United,^[5] before spending a further loan period at Norwich City.

[edit] Sheffield United

He later re-joined Sheffield United in a permanent deal for £250,000, after agreeing to a wage cut.^[6] He appeared for United in 2001–02, 2002–03, and until the spring in 2003–04. He was a key player in 2003 as the Blades reached both domestic cup semi-finals and the Division One playoff final.^[2] During a game against Arsenal in the 2003 FA Cup semi final, he was denied a goal when a header was saved on the line by the Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman.

[edit] Derby County

In March 2004, Peschisolido joined Derby County in a swap deal, with Izale McLeod moving to United on loan for the rest of the season.^[7] At Derby he had a knack for scoring vital goals from the substitutes' bench, although he started in the play off final against West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium. Derby won 1–0 to win promotion to the Premier League. On 1 June 2007 it was announced that he had been released by the club.^[8]

[edit] Luton Town

On 16 July Peschisolido signed for Luton Town on a one year deal.^[9] He played just four league matches for Luton and scored once in the Football League Trophy against Northampton^[10] before an ankle problem kept him out of action from September onwards. After the injury failed to respond to injections it was confirmed in December that he would require an operation, ruling him out for the remainder of the season.^[11] Luton released Peschisolido at the end of 2007–08, following their relegation to League Two.^[12]

By this time, he had accumulated some 445 league appearances, scoring 115 goals over a 15-year career, predominantly in the second tier of English professional football. He also made 75 cup appearances, scoring 22 goals.

[edit] International career

Peschisolido played in all of Canada's three games at the 1987 FIFA U-16 World Championship which were held in Canada.

He made his senior debut for Canada in a June 1992 Columbus 500 Cup match against Hongkong, in which he immediately scored his first international goal. He earned a total of 53 caps, scoring 10 goals.^[13] He has represented Canada in 21 FIFA World Cup qualification matches^[14] and played at the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup.

His final international was a September 2004 World Cup qualification match against Honduras.

[edit] Managerial career

On 15 January 2009, he was appointed as Jeff Kenna's assistant manager at League of Ireland club St Patrick's Athletic.^[15] Both Kenna and Peschisolido registered as players for the 2009 season in case of emergency.^[16] On 15 May 2009 he resigned from this post for "personal reasons" with immediate effect.^[17]

Three days later, on 18 May 2009 he was appointed manager of Burton Albion, who gained promotion to League Two.^[18]

[edit] Playing statistics

[edit] Personal life

In 1995, Peschisolido married Karren Brady, the Managing Director of Birmingham City F.C.. The couple have two children, daughter Sophia and son Paolo. Peschisolido is the cousin of former NHL hockey player Mike Ricci.

[edit] Honours

[edit] Individual

• Canadian International Player of the Year: 1996

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Paul Peschisolido career stats at Soccerbase
• Profile on Luton Town F.C. official site
• A November 2004 BBC Derby profile of Peschisolido
• Player profile - CanadaSoccer
• Career information at ex-canaries.co.uk
• Career stats - National Football Teams

v • d • e Canada squad – 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup Winners (1st Title) 1 Forrest • 2 Fenwick • 3 Fletcher • 4 Menezes • 5 de Vos • 6 Aristodemo • 7 Stalteri • 8 Dasovic • 9 Corazzin • 10 Xuasa • 11 Brennan • 12 Clarke • 13 Watson • 14 Bent • 15 Hastings • 16 Kusch • 17 Peschisolido • 18 Thomas • 21 Nash • 22 Onstad • 24 De Rosario • Coach: Osieck

v • d • e Canada squad – 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup 1 Forrest • 2 Clarke • 3 Watson • 4 Menezes • 5 de Vos • 6 Bent • 7 Stalteri • 8 Dasovic • 9 Corazzin • 10 Xausa • 11 Brennan • 12 Onstad • 13 Fletcher • 14 Imhof • 15 Hastings • 16 Kusch • 17 de Rosario • 18 Nsaliwa • 19 Peschisolido • 20 McKenna • 21 Bircham • 22 Franks • Coach: Osieck