Ahmed Hossam

Encyclopedia : A : AH : AHM : Ahmed Hossam

Ahmed "Mido" Hossam (Arabic: أحمد حسام) (born February 23, 1983 in Cairo), is an Egyptian footballer who is a striker and currently with Italian side AS Roma

Mido is well known for his volatile temperament as well as his footballing prowess. He was reported to be the highest ever paid Egyptian professional and in 2002 Mido was named African Youth Player of the Year. He made his first full international appearance against the UAE scoring Egypt's first goal in a 2-1 victory. Recently he established the "Mido Football Academy" which is recognised as a step in revolutionizing Egyptian football.

At Ajax, he averaged a goal every other game, but clashed with coach Ronald Koeman and reportedly threw a pair of scissors at fellow Ajax striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic after an argument. [link] He has earned 43 caps for Egypt, but lost his place in the national team after a bitter falling-out in 2004 with then-coach Marco Tardelli. He claimed to be unavailable for the national team due to an injury, but played in a friendly match with Roma 24 hours later. Tardelli immediately dropped him, and the national federation announced that he would not play again for the team.

In January 2005, Mido was signed by Tottenham Hotspur on an 18-month loan deal. He scored two goals on his Spurs debut and continued to improve in the following months, proving to be well-suited for the Premiership. In the 2005-2006 season, he scored 14 goals in 28 games. By this time Tardelli had been sacked as Egypt coach, and the federation signaled that they would consider a return by Mido if he were willing to apologise for his past behaviour. In February, while his new teammates were playing in an FA Cup tie for which he was ineligible, Mido flew to Cairo and made a public apology. The following month, he was recalled to the national team.

On February 8, 2006, it was announced that Mido had been thrown out of the Egypt team as a consequence of an argument with coach Hassan Shehata in which he called his manager a 'donkey' (interpreted as an "idiot" or an "ass") during the African Cup of Nations. The argument had started after Mido reacted badly to being substituted in the semi-final game against Senegal. The Egyptian Football Association subsequently ruled Mido out of the international team for six months. Mido later apologised to the coach and his teammates who went on to win the cup by beating Cote d'Ivoire 4-2 in a penalty shoot-out in the final.

Mido ended the 2005-06 Premiership season as Tottenham's seond-highest goalscorer with 14 goals. He also established a great following at the club where the fans chanted "Mido, Yiddo"; Yiddo being a nickname given to Spurs fans due to their large Jewish following. He also expressed that he did not wish to return to Roma, but rather sign permanently with Tottenham. On February 18, 2006, Tottenham manager, Martin Jol declared that the club were confident of signing Mido on a permanent basis due to his good performances. However in May of 2006 Tottenham signed Dimitar Berbatov for £10.9 million, and announced that they would not be signing Mido permanantly.

He also rejected a 3.5 million transfer to Blackburn Rovers stating: "I am not interested in Blackburn...I want to remain at Roma and prove that I can help this team go on to achieve success."

Clubs

TVMK (2006-present)
Tottenham Hotspur (loan; January 2005 - May 2006)
Roma (2004 - )
Celta Vigo (loan; March 2003 - July 2003)
Olympique de Marseille (2003 - 2004)
Ajax Amsterdam (2001 - 2003)
Gent (2000 - 2001)
Zamalek (1999 - 2000)

External links

|- style="text-align: center;"

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.