Ilyos Zeytulayev is an Uzbekfootballer who plays as a midfielder or as a forward. Zeytulayev has spent most of his career in the Italian Serie B and Lega Pro Prima Divisione. His first name is sometimes spelled Illyos, or Ilyas, the latter of which is the Russian equivalent. Moreover, Zeytulayev is also romanized as Zeytulaev.
Club career
Zeytulayev started his professional career in the Juventus youth teams along with Serhiy Kovalenko and Viktor Budyanskiy. He signed a 5-year contract on 10 August 2001. He joined Juve permanently in February 2002 along with Kovalenko after a loan from Sportakademklub Moscow, the team he played since he was 13. The Turin club paid US$400,000 to buy the duo's image and registration rights. He also played both legs against Sampdoria in the Coppa Italia 2001–02.
After graduating from the U20 team in June, along with Viktor Budyanskiy, they were unable to register as a Juve players. At first, FIGC declared that their remaining 2-year contracts did not fulfill the regulations and voided them. The FIGC declared that they had been on youth contracts which could only run for a maximum of 3 years. In addition, a non-EU player at that time could not sign a contract extension. Thus they were released. However, after an appeal, the appeal community stated that a foreigner could sign a professional contract regardless his age, and FIGC regulations only protected domestic youth products who can only sign a contract for more than 3 years after the age of 18. They were transferred to Reggina for €1K to co-own the players in January 2005, He played in his first Serie A match on 19 March 2005, coming on as a substitute for Marco Borriello in the 75th minutes against his first club Juve. The match ended in a 0-1 loss. In June 2005, Juventus bought back Budyanskiy for €0.5K, while Reggina signed Zeytulayev permanently for the same price. After not playing in the 2005–06 Serie A, in January 2006 he was loaned out to Serie B sideCrotone. In 2006-07 season, he was loaned out again, this time to Genoa and Vicenza of Serie B.
In July 2007, he left for Verona of Serie C1. But after a poor season, he left for Pescara on a free transfer. There, he became a regular member of the team. In August 2009, he signed a 3-year contract with Lanciano as a free agent. In his first season, he only made 14 league appearances, but in 2010–11 season, he started a successive 5 league games for the team, as one of the strikers in a 4-3-3 formation, along with Luís Gabriel Sacilotto to partner with Umberto Improta or Francesco Di Gennaro.
Late career
In January 2014 Zeytulayev was signed by Torino F.C.. However, the signing was aiming solely to exploit the mechanism of the non-EU signing of the league. On 4 February 2014 Zeytulayev joined Croatian club HNK Gorica in a temporary deal. In the same window Torino signed Marko Vešović from Serbia.
