Forgotten Liverpool and Man City star now has a football academy out in Siberia

Of all the places for a former Premier League footballer to settle down, who in their right mind would pick Siberia?

Albert Riera, who played for Liverpool and Manchester City in the 00s, traded the chance of a cushy retirement on the sun-kissed coast of his Spanish island home for a life of graft in the frostbitten wilderness of central Russia. Though bizarrely, it all kind of happened by accident.

The 41-year-old married Yulia Koroleva, a Russian national, in 2009 and the couple have three kids together. In 2016, Riera was without a club after being released by Slovenian side Koper, so he decided to move his family to the Siberian town of Tomsk (as you do).

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Tomsk's biggest football team, the fabulously named Tom Tomsk, had offered Riera a short term contract, and he and his wife saw it as a good opportunity to show the children a little more of their mother's homeland. However, Tom Tomsk had troub trouble registering him due to financial issues at the club and he never played a single game for them.

Instead, the family moved to the nearby town of Osmk (geez, Siberia, learn a new syllable), where Yulia grew up. A few months later Riera decided to call time on his playing career (by literally 'hanging up his boots' on a tree), but had no intention of leaving football. He was approached by the Spanish FA, who offered to put him on a coaching course so he could get his badges.

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"I was in a group with Xabi Alonso, Xavi Hernandez, Raul, Joan Capdevila and Marcos Senna. I couldn’t say no to that," Riera told The Athletic. "One of our teachers was Fernando Hierro. Imagine being in the same classroom as Raul with the mentality from all that time at Real Madrid and Xavi after so long at Barcelona.

"We shared ideas and I loved my time with those guys. We learnt a lot from each other. It was a great experience. It gave me so much motivation to start this new chapter of my life."

After earning a UEFA Pro License he secured a coaching job at Turkish giants Galatasaray, but also decided to put his skills to good use in the local Omsk community. He established the Albert Riera Spanish Football Academy academy in the town, which teaches kids to play the game 'tiki-taka' style.

"I set up the academy because they really like Spanish football, ball control, ball possession, tiki-taka and so on," Riera explained back in 2020. "It has been very successful.

"Technique is important, talent is important, but if you don't know how to move, how to position yourself, it will be more difficult to arrive. In Spanish football we are characterized not only by winning, we are not results-oriented. I don't care about the result of the weekend. We are training players. That is what I instil in them and what differentiates Spain from other countries."

The kids play on insulated, indoor pitches to escape the freezing temperatures, which can drop to 35 degrees below zero in winter. Despite being raised a sun-loving Spaniard, Riera says he's adapted well to life in Siberia thanks to his love of snow, skiing and Russian vodka.

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In 2022 he was lured away from Omsk after being hired as head coach of Slovenian side Olimpija Ljubljana and later joined their neighbours Celje, and last month he was hired by French giants Bordeaux, who are currently playing in Ligue 2.

He spent two years at Bordeaux as a player, moving there from hometown club Mallorca in 2003. In 2005 he was snapped by Espanyol, and was loaned out to Man City a few months later. The winger made 19 appearances for the Citizens, scoring just the one goal.

In 2008 he signed for Liverpool, but spent just one season playing regular football before dropping to the bench in 2009. After scoring five goals in 56 games for the Reds he was sold to Olympiacos in 2010. After that he played for Galatasaray, Udinese and Watford before sealing a move back to Mallorca in 2014.

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