Guilherme voted as Loko's best

Alvim Marinato Guilherme or simply Guilherme has won the Lokomotiv Moscow Player of the Season 2008 award, as voted for by the red-green fans on the forum. Guilherme, who was the only player who appeared in all the 30 matches of the Russian Premier Liga, won an amazing 59% of the votes casted by the Loko faithful. Olexandr Aliev, who scored a great tally of 14 goals throughout the whole season could only come second with just 18%. On the other hand, Dmitry Sychev and Dmitry Loskov shared the last place of the podium with 10% each.

To say the truth I am quite surprised with the outcome of the result. Don't get me wrong, Guilherme for sure deserved such award as he was the most consistent of all, but if you asked me on whom I would have put the money, without any hesitance I would have picked Aliev. The reason is simple. Aliev scored 14 goals this season and for much of the time he was our star performer. Nevertheless, I think that it is imperative to say that although Aliev had a great first round, his performances in the second suffered and thus at the end the former CA Paranaense keeper fully deserved such award. Actually, if at one end there was Aliev scoring goals for fun (in the first period), at the other we had a keeper who in certain occasion single handedly kept Lokomotiv in game, and that was Guilherme. In his 30 appearances, the Brazilian keeper let only 29 goals and recorded an impressive tally of 11 clean sheets - something which hadn't happened since Ovchinnikov left for Dynamo Moscow.

Upon being nominated as Loko's best player, Guilherme showed his surprise to the result, especially with regards to the margin obtained. Guilherme added that this sensation is not new to him as last year, despite playing just half of the matches, the keeper managed to come 3rd in last year's poll. Finally, Guilherme thanked the fans, who for the whole season, despite various setbacks never stopped to support the team - and that's the reason why in his opinion, the fans were Loko's best player of the season.

Glad to say that it's pleasant to witness such bond between a player and the fans. Just brilliant!

Anyways, well done Guilherme and keep it up!! I am of the utter belief that should Guilherme mantain the progress he had shown in recent months, he can go far and maybe even reach the level of Igor Akinfeev - and I'm not joking! All the best Alvim!!