Louis Crayton (born 26 October 1977 in

Monrovia Monrovia () is the administrative capital city, capital and largest city of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast and as of the 2022 census had 1,761,032 residents, home to 33.5% of Liber ...

) is a

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

n former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

Career

Early years

Crayton started his career playing for St. Joseph Warriors in Liberia before moving to his first Swiss club,

Luzern Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

in 1997. He left the club in 1998 to spend two seasons as back-up keeper at Grasshoppers Zürich until 2000 before going on to spend one half-season apiece at

FC Schaffhausen FC Schaffhausen is a Swiss Association football, football team from the town of Schaffhausen. The club set to plays in the Promotion League from 2025–26, the third tier of Swiss football after relegation from Challenge League (Switzerland), Ch ...

, in the third tier, and FC Wangen bei Olten, in the second tier, in 2000 and 2001. He then moved to YF Juventus and spent the 2001–02 season with the club, in the third tier, before going on to spend the 2002–03 season at

Zug Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; ; ; ; )Named in the 16th century. is the largest List of cities in Switzerland, town and capital of the Swiss canton of Zug. Zug is renowned as a hub for some of the wealthiest individuals in the wor ...

. For Zug he was also selected to take the spot kicks, which he did on four occasions successfully. In the summer of 2003, he moved to Concordia Basel, in the second tier, and spent two seasons with the club as first-choice goalkeeper.

Basel

On 27 June 2005 it was announced that

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

had signed a three-year contract with Crayton as reserve goalkeeper behind first-choice keeper Pascal Zuberbühler. He joined Basel's first team during their 2005–06 season under head coach

Christian Gross Christian Jürgen Gross (born 14 August 1954) is a Swiss football manager and former player. He played as a sweeper and central midfielder. Gross was manager of Basel from 1999 to 2009, winning four Swiss Super Leagues and four Swiss Cups. As ...

, who had started his seventh season with the club in that position. After playing in eight test games, Crayton played his debut for the club in a

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

away game in the Stadion Schützenmatte on 22 October 2005 as Basel won 6–1 against local amateur club Old Boys. Crayton spent the rest of his first season with Basel on the bench as a backup, because Zuberbühler played in all the other competitive matches. To the beginning of their 2006–07 season Zuberbühler transferred out and Franco Costanzo was brought in as replacement. Until he was eligible to play, Crayton played the first two games in the 2006–07 Super League and two

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

matches. He also played one match in the

group stage in November 2006, due to a red-card suspension of the first-choice keeper Franco Costanzo. At the end of the 2006–07 Super League season Basel were runners-up, one point behind championship winners

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. In the Swiss Cup Basel advanced to the final, beating FC Liestal in the first round,

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

, FC Baulmes,

Aarau Aarau (, ) is a List of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital of the northern Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Aargau. The List of towns in Switzerland, town is also the capital of the d ...

and Wil in the semi-final. In the final they played

and won this 1–0 thanks to a penalty goal in the third minute of added time. Due to a re-occurring injury to Costanzo's knee, Crayton came to a number of appearances in the new season. At the end of the 2007–08 season he won the

Double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

with the club. They won the League Championship title with four points advantage over second placed Young Boys. In the

via FC Léchelles, SC Binningen, Grasshopper Club, Stade Nyonnais and in the semi-final

Thun Thun () is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Bern, Bern in Switzerland. ...

, Basel advanced to the final, and winning this 4–1 against

AC Bellinzona AC Bellinzona is a Swiss football club based in Bellinzona. It was founded in 1904, and won the Swiss Super League in 1948. After being folded in 2013 declaring bankruptcy, the team played the Ticino Group of 2.Liga, the sixth tier of the Sw ...

they won the competition. At the end of the season, it was Crayton's wish to leave the club. During his time with them, Crayton played a total of 55 games for Basel without scoring a goal. 11 of these games were in the

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

, five in the

and 34 were friendly games.

D.C. United

On 7 August 2008, Basel announced they were allowing Crayton to move to

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

and on 15 August 2008 Crayton had signed with D.C. United. He made his first start against Chicago Fire on 16 August 2008, and secured his first MLS shutout in the process. During the 2009 season, Crayton has been caught in a three-way competition with Josh Wicks and Milos Kocic for the starting goalkeeper position for United. It appeared that Crayton would get the starting spot in goal for the 2009 season however a hip injury along with Crayton's high salary proved to much for DC which resulted in Crayton's contract being terminated.

Minnesota Stars

In the winter/spring of 2010 Crayton tried out with the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer but was eventually released. On 16 March 2010 the new expansion NASL team,

NSC Minnesota Stars NSC may refer to: Banking and investment * National Sort Code, an Irish bank code * Nomura Securities Co, an investment bank Computing * National Software Centre, an Irish organization * National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden * NetShow Cha ...

announced that they had signed Crayton to a 1-year deal. Crayton made his debut for the team in its opening game of the 2010 season against the

Vancouver Whitecaps Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Vancouver. The Whitecaps compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on March 18, ...

, but suffered a serious season-ending knee injury just minutes into the game.

International

Crayton made his international debut for

in a

2000 African Cup of Nations The 2000 African Cup of Nations was the 22nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the association football championship of Africa ( CAF). It was co-hosted by Ghana and Nigeria, who jointly replaced Zimbabwe as host. Just like in 1998, the field ...

qualifying match against

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

. Crayton went on to represent his country 36 times, often serving as captain, before announcing his retirement from international football in May 2008. In addition to his national team appearances, Crayton has also played in two

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

World All-Star games, in South Africa in 1999, and in Hong Kong in 2008.

Personal life

Having spent so much time playing for various clubs in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

between 1997 and 2008, Crayton now also holds

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

citizenship.

Honors

;Basel *

: 2007–08 *

: 2006–07, 2007–08 * Uhren Cup: 2006 ;DC United * Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup (1):

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

References

Sources

* Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage

External links

MLS player profile

Profile at Weltfussball.de

footballdatabase.com profile

United signs Liberian 'keeper Crayton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crayton, Louis 1977 births Liberian men's footballers Living people Liberian expatriate men's footballers Liberia men's international footballers 2002 African Cup of Nations players FC Luzern players Grasshopper Club Zurich players FC Schaffhausen players FC Concordia Basel players FC Basel players D.C. United players FC Wangen bei Olten players Men's association football goalkeepers SC Young Fellows Juventus players Minnesota United FC (2010–2016) players Swiss Super League players Major League Soccer players USSF Division 2 Professional League players Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Footballers from Monrovia