League of Ireland legend Eamon Zayed has been tearing it up in the North American Soccer League (NASL) with IndyEleven. NASL is the second division of American foot Soccer, and is notable for being packed with some utterly magnificent club names, including Tampa Bay Rowdies, Jacksonville Armada and Carolina RailHawks.
Zayed has been doing well with his club, IndyEleven, since joining in December of last year. In the 26 league appearances he has made for the club, he's bagged eleven goals, which isn't bad going at all.
IndyEleven have reaped the rewards of Zayed's form, and sit third in the NASL table ladder.
And his form has not gone unnoticed by the league as a whole, either, as Zayed has been nominated for the league's Golden Ball award, which is awarded to the league's Most Valuable Player.
The list of nominations is made up of 12 players, and was put together by asking each coach for a nomination. Here is the full list, featuring Zayed alongside Joe Cole:
Nazmi Albadawi (Carolina RailHawks), Matt Van Oekel (FC Edmonton), Albert Watson (FC Edmonton), Eamon Zayed (Indy Eleven), Cristian Ramirez (Minnesota United), Justin Davis (Minnesota United), Juan Arango (New York Cosmos), Ayoze (New York Cosmos), Michel (Rayo OKC), Joe Cole (Tampa Bay Rowdies).
The best news of all, however, is the fact that it's a public vote, which is the kind of thing us Irish excel at. One of the great skills of the Irish people is our ability to rig a public vote.
The BBC were forced to recognise this when they had to announce that the Wolfe Tones classic 'A Nation Once Again' had come out on top in a poll to find the world's favourite song in 2002.
This isn't even the most stunning example of the Irish punching above their weight in online polling contests.
For a short while in 1999, it looked as if former Middlesbrough full-back Ronnie O'Brien was about to be crowned Time Person of the Century ahead of other admittedly strong contenders like Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King.
An incredible amount of ordinary people were motivated to make their voice heard and proclaim Ronnie O'Brien the Person of the Century. An effective email campaign led to him garnering no fewer than 57,000 votes.
It looked set to be a right old ding dong battle between the three big boys, Einstein, Gandhi and O'Brien. But then, in an outrageous and wholly objectionable move, Time removed O'Brien from the reckoning on the pernicious grounds that 'whimsical candidates will be not be counted'.
This high-handed edict brought the whole poll into disrepute. For many people, it cast a shadow over Albert Einstein's eventual victory.
You can vote for Zayed here. Get on it.
