Sixty will always be a special number at Everton thanks to Dixie Dean’s goalscoring exploits in the 1927/28 season but having also reached that number, another Blues record breaker is as enthusiastic as ever to still be in the game.
Preki, or to give him his full title, Predrag Radosavljevic, who with 20 characters had the longest ever name of an Everton player (he now shares the title with Diniyar Bilyaletdinov), has just celebrated his 60th birthday but is looking forward to many more years in football – and why not given that he’s always been something of a late bloomer. He’s currently assistant coach at Major League Soccer club Seattle Sounders to Brian Schmetzer who is 10 months his senior, a post he’s occupied since 2018 but after previous stints in charge of Chivas USA, Toronto FC, Sacramento Republic and Saint Louis FC, the former Blues midfielder maintains that he’s always keeping an eye out for better times ahead.
After all, this is the man who didn’t make his Premier League debut until he was 29 and earned his first international cap aged 33. His football story is far from conventional and he arrived at Everton ahead of the first Premier League season in 1992/93 having spent – apart from a few months in Sweden with Raslatts in 1990 – the best part of the previous seven years playing indoor soccer in the USA.
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Preki told the ECHO: “I’d been on loan from Red Star to another First Division club in Yugoslavia and played in a tournament in Belgrade where Bob McNab (the former Huddersfield Town and Arsenal left-back who coached US indoor sides Tacoma Stars and then San Jose Grizzlies) and Kenny Cooper (a Blackpool-born former Fleetwood goalkeeper who coached Houston Summit, Baltimore Blast and Tampa Bay Terror) were there scouting players. Bob approached me and offered me an opportunity to come to the US and I grabbed it with two hands.
“In those days, the players where I was didn’t make a lot of money and I came from a background of not being an incredibly rich kid so I made the decision to go and it changed my life.”
While Preki had averaged better than a goal a game tearing things up in converted venues conventionally used for basketball and ice hockey playing for Tacoma Stars and then St Louis Storm in the Major Indoor Soccer League, when the competition folded he was eager to try his luck in Europe again after the big impact he’d made in Scandinavia. Fortunately he was given an opportunity on Merseyside by Everton’s most-successful manager who had returned for a second stint in charge.
He said: “I left Red Star as a young boy and I always wanted to play the proper game but in the meantime I was doing something different. Howard Kendall spoke to Bob McNab, who was responsible for bringing me to the States.
“Howard invited me to trials. I actually tried out for both Everton and Tottenham Hotspur, got invited back by both and then offered a contract by Everton.
“Of course it was a great opportunity for me. It took me a while to get my legs back because I’d been away from 11-a-side football for a long time.
“It’s really not easy to do what I did because when you don’t play the game at the top level for such a long time, to come into the Premier League is not an easy adjustment. I wish I came there when I was younger (Preki was 29 when he joined Everton), it would have been different, but you don’t get to choose when the chance comes.”
Apart from Australian-born back-up goalkeeper Jason Kearton, who was Neville Southall’s understudy, Polish international winger Robert Warzycha – who would later become a Major League Soccer stalwart himself as a player and coach at Columbus Crew – was the only other overseas member of the Blues squad but Preki was grateful for the welcome he received. He said: “Howard was a great man, first of all he was a great, great human being. He was always a players’ coach and I have great memories of him.
“The Everton dressing room were terrific, there were no problems in accepting me and while playing in the Premier League was difficult, I enjoyed it.
“There were not a lot of foreign players in the Premier League back then. At Everton there was only Robert Warzycha and myself.
“We both lived close to each other in West Derby and we were friends and are families were close so that made it a lot easier for me to settle in and be more comfortable because obviously it’s not easy if you’re alone.”
Unlike Warzycha, Preki arrived already able to speak English following his time in the USA but he laughs when he’s asked how he got to grips with the Scouse accent. He said: “It was tough at first! It took me a while to understand it and as well as local lads in the dressing room, there were Scottish players too. My son Nick was born in Liverpool but he doesn’t have a Scouse accent.”
Preki’s early Everton career was something of a crash course to the realities of English club football and he started with a trio of consecutive defeats away to Rotherham United in the League Cup, Leeds United and Oldham Athletic. After 53 appearances and four goals for the Blues he then had a spell at Portsmouth before returning to the USA for good where he thrived in the less physically-demanding environment.
Given the way football has evolved since and the Premier League has enticed more talent from around the globe, Preki reckons he’d have been a bigger success in England if he was coming over now. He said: “I had opportunities to move to a couple of different clubs after Portsmouth but I understood that my future was back in the US. I was already 32 and I had an opportunity to become a US citizen and play for them in the World Cup so I took on the challenge of going to Major League Soccer that was just starting.
“Absolutely it would be easier for me coming into the Premier League now than 30 years ago. There were games in my day where I’d be touching the ball just four or five times in 90 minutes.
“It’s a different game now and one that would suit me more. You can’t pick and choose though.”
So what does this MLS pioneer think of the league’s latest high-profile recruit? As you can imagine, a diminutive left-footed ball player is a kindred spirit to him so he’s delighted to welcome Lionel Messi to Inter Miami.
Preki said: “You don’t get a special player like that to come to your league every day. We’ve had David Beckham in the past and unfortunately Zlatan (Ibrahimovic) only stayed one year but hopefully Leo stays for the rest of his career and helps the game grow in this country.
“In my mind there is no doubt he’s the best player on the planet when you look at what the little guy can do. He can turn the game in a second and he’s a special talent so it might be a long, long time before we see someone like that again.
“The standard in MLS is really improving. A lot of players from different countries are coming into the league now and there is plenty of talent from Central and South America plus Europe here.
“It’s getting better for sure and also a lot of young American players are going to play in Europe and some of them are at important clubs. I think it’s a good time to come to MLS.”
Although he’s over four-and-a-half thousand miles away in the USA’s Pacific North West region rather than England’s North West, Preki acknowledges that he’ll always cherish his time at Everton and once more he’s hoping for better times ahead. He said: “Goodison was always a special ground, I loved playing there. It was nice, tight, compact ground contained within the neighbourhood and people live for that, I hope the new stadium doesn’t lose that magic.
“I loved being there and playing for a club of Everton’s status, they will always be in my heart and I have great memories of being there. It was an honour and I’ll always believe that Everton is a big club, they’ve just got to find the moment again to get there.”
