Almoez Ali

Almoez Ali Zainalabiddin Abdullah (Arabic: المعز علي زين العابدين عبد الله‎; born 19 August 1996) is a Sudanese-born naturalised Qatari professional footballer who plays for and captains the Qatar Stars League side Al-Duhail and Qatar as a forward. He is a member of the Qatar national team which helped the team to win the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. He holds the record of most goals scored in an Asian Cup, scoring nine in the 2019 edition.[5]

Almoez Ali
Almoez Ali celebrating the 2019 AFC Asian Cup victory with Qatar
Personal information
Full name Almoez Ali Zainalabiddin Abdullah[1]
Date of birth (1996-08-19) 19 August 1996
Place of birth Khartoum, Sudan[2]
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)[3]
Position(s) Forward, winger[4]
Club information
Current team
 Al-Duhail
Number 19
Youth career
2003–2006 Al-Mesaimeer
2006–2013 Aspire Academy
2013–2014 Lekhwiya
2014–2015 Eupen
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2015 FC Pasching/LASK Linz II 4 (5)
2015–2016 LASK Linz 7 (1)
2016 Cultural Leonesa 10 (1)
2016– Al-Duhail 91 (29)
National team‡
2014–2015 Qatar U20 9 (3)
2016–2018 Qatar U23 7 (6)
2016– Qatar 61 (29)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 28 December 2020
‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 28 December 2020

Club career

Almoez Ali was born in Sudan and moved to Qatar as a child.[6][7] He started playing for Al-Mesaimeer when he was 7 years old, then moved to Aspire Academy and played youth football at Lekhwiya SC.[8][9] He was also a part of the youth setup for Belgian club Eupen in 2015.[10]

In July 2015, Ali joined the senior team of Austrian club LASK Linz.[11] His first and only league goal for the club's first team came on 27 November 2015 against Floridsdorfer AC.[12] In January 2016, he left the club and joined Cultural Leonesa in Spain's third tier, the Segunda División B.[13] On 3 April 2016, he scored his first goal for Cultural Leonesa in a 1–0 victory over Arandina,[14] becoming the first Qatari footballer ever to score in a Spanish league.[15]

Ali rejoined his former youth club Lekhwiya SC for the 2016–17 season. He scored his first goal for the club on 27 September 2016 in a 5–4 win against Muaither.[16] He went on to make 25 appearances and scoring 8 goals, as well as providing 8 assists and being awarded as the best U23 player of the season as his club won the Qatar Stars League.[17]

In the following season, Almoez Ali was part of the newly rebranded Al-Duhail, as his former club was merged with El Jaish, and was part of the unbeaten QSL title campaign.[18]

International career

Almoez Ali unofficially made his inaugural appearance for the senior national team in a friendly against Bahrain in December 2013. The match was not recognized by FIFA.[19]

In 2014, Almoez Ali was a part of the Qatar U19 team that won the 2014 AFC U-19 Championship. In 2015, he was part of the Qatar U20 squad for the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He played in the three group stage matches, but Qatar did not advance to the knockout stage.[20][21][22]

On 8 August 2016, Almoez Ali made his official senior debut for the national team as a substitute in 2–1 win against Iraq.[23] Furthermore, he was the top scorer in the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship with six goals and played an instrumental role in Qatar's third-place ranking.[24]

2019 AFC Asian Cup
Ali celebrating after scoring a goal against UAE in 2019 AFC Asian Cup semi-final.

He was selected for Qatar's squad in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. He found the net in his team's first group stage game against Lebanon. In the next game against North Korea, he scored a four goals in a span of 51 minutes,[25] the second fastest time to four goals after Iranian Ali Daei, who scored four goals in 23 minutes against South Korea in the 1996 AFC Asian Cup.[26]

The following match, against Saudi Arabia, he increased his tally in the competition to seven goals after scoring both goals in the 2–0 win.[27] In doing so, he became the joint-top scorer in the AFC Asian Cup Group Stage, sharing the record with Ali Daei of Iran, Choi Soon-ho of South Korea and Naohiro Takahara of Japan. He also broke Mansour Muftah's all-time record of five goals scored for the Qatar national team in the AFC Asian Cup.[28]

In the semi-final against United Arab Emirates, Ali scored his eighth goal of the competition in a 4–0 win, equalling Ali Daei's mark established in 1996 as the most goals scored in a single AFC Asian Cup edition.[29] He broke that record in the following game after scoring the opening goal with a bicycle kick at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup Final match against Japan.[30][31]

Eligibility dispute

On 30 January 2019, soon after the 4–0 defeat at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup semifinal, the UAE FA lodged a formal appeal to the AFC over the eligibility of Sudanese-born Almoez Ali and Iraqi-born Bassam Al-Rawi, claiming that they did not qualify to play for Qatar on residency grounds based on Article 7 of the FIFA statute [32] which states that a player's eligibility to play for a representative team if he has "lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association". It was alleged that Almoez had not lived continuously in Qatar for at least five years over the age of 18, although the player claimed that his mother was born in Qatar.[33] On 1 February 2019, the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Committee dismissed the protest lodged by the United Arab Emirates Football Association without further comments or explanation.[34][35][36]

2019 Copa América

On 16 June, Ali scored in Qatar's 2–2 draw with Paraguay in the 2019 Copa América.[37]

Career Statistics
As of 28 December 2020
Club Season Qatar Stars League Emir of Qatar Cup AFC Champions League Other[lower-alpha 1] Total
Apps Goals Assist Apps Goals Assist Apps Goals Assist Apps Goals Assist Apps Goals Assist
Al-Duhail SC 2016–17 25 8 8 7 1 1
2017–18 16 7 8 10 2 4
2018–19 18 3 0 5 1 1
2019–20 19 7 5 6 3 2
2020–21 11 4 3
Total 91 29 24 28 7 8

International
Scores and results list Qatar's goal tally first.[19]
GoalDateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
1 5 October 2017Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar Singapore1–03–1Friendly
2 2–0
3 14 December 2017Hamad bin Khalifa Stadium, Doha, Qatar Liechtenstein1–01–2
4 23 December 2017Al Kuwait Sports Club Stadium, Kuwait City, Kuwait Yemen3–04–023rd Arabian Gulf Cup
5 26 December 2017 Iraq1–01–2
6 7 September 2018Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar China PR1–01–0Friendly
7 11 September 2018 Palestine1–03–0
8 12 October 2018Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar Ecuador2–04–3
9 4–1
10 23 December 2018Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar Jordan1–02–0
11 9 January 2019Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates Lebanon2–02–02019 AFC Asian Cup
12 13 January 2019Khalifa bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates North Korea1–06–0
13 2–0
14 4–0
15 5–0
16 17 January 2019Zayed Sports City Stadium, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia1–02–0
17 2–0
18 29 January 2019Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates2–04–0
19 1 February 2019Zayed Sports City Stadium, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Japan1–03–1
20 16 June 2019Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Paraguay1–22–22019 Copa América
21 5 September 2019Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar Afghanistan1–06–02022 FIFA World Cup qualification
22 2–0
23 5–0
24 16 October 2019Al Janoub Stadium, Al Wakrah, Qatar Oman2–12–1
25 29 November 2019Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar Yemen3–06–024th Arabian Gulf Cup
26 12 October 2020Mardan Sports Complex, Aksu, Turkey Ghana1–11–5Friendly
27 17 November 2020BSFZ-Arena, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria South Korea1–11–2
28 4 December 2020Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar Bangladesh3–05–02022 FIFA World Cup qualification
29 4–0

Honours

Club
Al-Duhail

International
Qatar U19
Qatar

Individual

Notes
  1. Includes Qatar Super Cup and Qatar Cup

References
  1. "FWYC 2015 Squad Lists QAT" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 January 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  2. "Qatar's Almoez Ali pick of the bunch in Asian Cup for young forwards". Qatar-Tribune.
  3. "Almoez Ali - AFC Asian Cup 2019".
  4. "المنتخب القطري يتوج بطلا لكأس آسيا لكرة القدم 2019 لأول مرة في تاريخه". جريدة لوسيل (in Arabic). 1 February 2019.
  5. https://twitter.com/afcasiancup/status/1091365169995886592
  6. "Asian Cup: Qatar beats Saudi Arabia in first meeting on pitch since blockade". Middle East Eye.
  7. "A Copa da Ásia define seus mata-matas, com o Catar surpreendendo como melhor da fase de grupos | Trivela" (in Portuguese).
  8. "المعز علي: لم أتوقع فوزي كأفضل لاعب صاعد".
  9. "AlMoez 'AlMoez' Ali Abdulla (32) Forward". LASK Linz. Archived from the original on 2 August 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  10. "Katar mit 6 KAS-Spielern" (in German). KAS Eupen. 5 June 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  11. "Almoez Ali". Norsk Internasjonal Fotballstatistikk. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  12. "LASK Linz-Floridsdorfer AC". Republica Sport. 27 November 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  13. Marcel Yildiz (4 January 2016). "Duo verlässt den LASK" (in German). Fussball Imnetz.
  14. "Continúa la mala racha ribereña". Diario de Burgos. 3 April 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  15. "Entrevista. Ali Almoez: "Quiero subir a Segunda el próximo año"". VAVEL (in Spanish). 10 April 2016.
  16. "Lekhwiya set early pace". www.thepeninsulaqatar.com.
  17. "Almoez Ali wins best U23 player award". Qatar Stars League. 20 May 2017.
  18. "Undefeated Al Duhail secure sixth Qatar Stars League title". www.the-afc.com.
  19. "Abdulla, Almoez Ali". national-football-teams.com.
  20. "FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015 - Matches - Qatar-Colombia".
  21. "FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015 - Matches - Qatar-Portugal".
  22. "FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015 - Matches - Senegal-Qatar".
  23. "Qatar vs. Iraq - Football Match Summary - August 8, 2016 - ESPN".
  24. Adwaidh Rajan (14 January 2019). "AFC Asian Cup 2019: Almoez Ali and Akram Afif – Qatar's hopes for 2022 World Cup". Fox Sports Asia. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  25. "AFC Asian Cup 2019: Almoez Ali sets new AFC Asian Cup record in Qatar's 6–0 demolition of DPR Korea". Fox Sports Asia. 13 January 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  26. "Moments and Milestones: Ali Daei's 23 minute masterclass". Tehran Times. 1 July 2016. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  27. "Shiotani fires Japan past Uzbeks, Qatar's Ali downs Saudis". AFP. 17 January 2019. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  28. Abdelaziz Abuhamar (18 January 2019). "Stats: Almoez strikes against Saudi set new marks in Asian Cup history". Inside World Football. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  29. "Qatar's Almoez Ali equals tournament record goal tally". www.the-afc.com.
  30. "AFC Asian Cup 2019: Japan 0-1 Qatar - Almoez Ali (12')". FOX Sports Asia.
  31. "Qatar stun Japan with 3-1 win to be crowned Asian Cup champions". Guardian. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
  32. "FIFA STATUTES April 2015 edition" (PDF).
  33. "UAE lodge formal protest with AFC over eligibility of two Qatar players at Asian Cup". The National.
  34. "UAE FA protest dismissed". The-AFC.com. Asian Football Confederation. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  35. "AFC gives its verdict on UAE's complaint over eligibility of 2 Qatar players in AFC Asian Cup 2019". foxsportsasia.com. Fox Sports. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  36. "UAE protest at eligibility of Qataris dismissed on day of final". Reuters. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  37. "Qatar shake up Copa with thrilling comeback against Paraguay". Euronews. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  38. "IFFHS MAN TEAM - AFC - OF THE DECADE 2011-2020". IFFHS. 30 January 2021.
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