Orlandi - we nearly lost him

Former Swansea City star Andrea Orlandi has revealed how he was almost a passenger on the tragic Germanwings plane that crashed into the Alps last week.

The current Blackpool midfielder, who was initially due to return to the UK following a trip to Spain on March 23, wrote on his blog: "I flew down to Barcelona on Sunday to sign the purchase of my apartment and I was planning to fly back on Monday morning.

"Due to a timetable misunderstanding I missed the flight back and I had to rush to buy a new ticket to fly that same night or the day after," he said.

"The option to fly to Manchester via Dusseldorf came up, the same flight that crashed."

Click to expand...

The players of Swedish soccer team Dalkurd narrowly escaped boarding the budget airline Germanwings' A320 that crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 people on board.

The team had considered four possible routes, one of which was on Germanwings flight 4U 9525, to take their players and staff home to Stockholm from a training camp in Barcelona.

The team ended up flying groups home on three separate flights, rejecting the Germanwings option because of the long wait for a connection in Duesseldorf.

"We really should have flown with that plane," Dalkurd sporting director Adil Kizil told the Sportbladet newspaper, as it was their first choice but the wait had changed their minds.

"Before we booked we looked at that flight that was going to Duesseldorf but there was such a long wait for the connection to Arlanda (Stockholm) that we chose to fly in three different groups instead."

Kizil said that the players at the third-tier club from the Swedish town of Borlange were very shaken when they realised how close they had come to meeting the fate that Manchester United (1958) and the Zambia (1993) national team had in the past.

"All the people there were at the same check-in desk as us at the same time. You could say we had a little luck today. What has happened is very, very tragic."

Germanwings is the budget airline of Germany's Lufthansa.

Click to expand...

Hampster Gull said:

Crazy to have gone frim barcelona to manchester via dusseldorf

Click to expand...

BensGrandad said:

We lost Orlandi 12 months ago thanks to Burke and have never adequately replaced him on the left of midfield.

Click to expand...

Cowfold Seagull said:

Memories can do starnge things. He was never THAT good in my opinion

Click to expand...

Cowfold Seagull said:

Memories can do starnge things. He was never THAT good in my opinion, not since Gus left anyway, yes he had his moments, but he only seemed to perform well in fits and starts.

That's not to say l want him dead, he is a nice guy apparantly. lol

Click to expand...

BensGrandad said:

I think that you have missed the point, no he wasnt brilliant all of the time but we havent replaced him and need a left sided midfielder. What we have had hasnt been as good as he was, for any period of time.

Click to expand...

Bozza said:

Blimey.



Source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-swansea-city-star-andrea-8953783

Click to expand...

hans kraay fan club said:

Who is that, playing for the Albion, in the picture they've used?

Click to expand...

Cowfold Seagull said:

I agree that we do need a left sided midfielder, but then we probably needed one while he was here too. He was lucky in that he was playing in a winning team.

Don't get me wrong, he isn't a 'bad' player, just not as good as some on here with rose tinted specs and a poor memory seem to think.
Just my opinion of course!

Click to expand...

Ernest said:

Some of the names we can discount but this was the team

M Kuipers, A Whing, T Elphick, J Wright yellow card (A El-Abd, 46), A Virgo yellow card, D Cox, A Navarro, A Crofts (M Wright, 46), M Thornhill, N Forster, L Dickinson (G Murray, 65)

Click to expand...

hans kraay fan club said:

Cheers. Jake Wright or Matt Thornhill then. Wright, I think.

Click to expand...

Ernest said:

Having looked at Google images it was Matt Thornhill, another in the long list of long forgotten Albion loanees

Click to expand...