Egyptian players walking the walk in the world of football

An exciting array of stars from the north African country are on the rise, writes Ian Hawkey.

Players such as Shikabala, right, have a great story to tell about their rise in the football world, writes our columnist. Jake Badger / The National

Derby week in Lisbon allows few distractions from the main event, especially when the Benfica-Sporting match in question has the city’s fiercest rivals placed first and second in the table, with just two points between them.

Yet there has been an alternative headliner in Lisbon’s sports press the past five days.

The arrival of Mahmoud Abdel Razek as an attacking reinforcement at Sporting, who are chasing their first league title in 12 years, intrigues the Portuguese.

“Shikabala”, as the Egyptian is best known, is unlikely to start the potentially decisive derby at the Estadio da Luz on Sunday, because the Sporting manager Leonardo Jardim deems him still a couple of weeks short of the necessary acclimatisation.

That detail has not prevented the dailies, A Bola, Record and O Jogo, from devoting much space to analysing one of the Middle East’s most enigmatic talents.

“If he works for the team, he could be a great,” Manuel Jose, the Portuguese coach who guided Cairo’s Al Ahly to four African Champions League titles, told Record.

He also said: “It is a risky signing.”

Shikabala, 27, has divided opinion throughout his career.

He has left Zamalek, for the second time, after a dispute with the Cairo club’s management, and his kudos with the Egypt national team, after criticism of his sloppiness in possession during their World Cup play-off defeat against Ghana last November, is currently low.

He hopes his latest move abroad brings more consistent plaudits and rewards than his underwhelming stint at Al Wasl in the Arabian Gulf League.

Yet Sporting represents a fine opportunity. Uefa Champions League football beckons in September and the side have traditions favourable to his particular, showy set of skills.

Shikabala, the trickster and sometimes dazzling dribbler, has joined the club where Luis Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani grew up as footballers.

“I am here to help win a championship,” Shikabala said via social media. Sporting’s own Facebook page, they gleefully reported, added 120,000 new “likes” in the first four days of the player’s employment. Expatriate Egyptian stars tend to bring with them an enthusiastic and large fan base, as other European clubs have realised.

At Chelsea, a similar phenomenon – a flood of new followers across the web – has been observed in the two weeks since Mohamed Salah, 21, joined the Premier League club from Basel, during what was a busy transfer period for various stars of the Egyptian game.

Amr Zaki, the powerful and sometimes combustible striker, joined Morocco’s Raja Casablanca, silver medallists at the Club World Cup in December, after a short spell in Kuwait, while the experienced international midfielder Abdel Eid Abdel-Malek has gone on loan from Zamalek to Ahly Benghazi.

If that seems a step down, joining the Libyan league, recent events at the African Nations Championship, CHAN, would challenge that impression.

Last weekend, Libya won the CHAN, the Pan-African international competition contested by national squads drawn only from players operating in their own domestic league.

Egypt’s status, maintained throughout the first decade of this century as home of Africa’s strongest league, has been dented in the last two years, which partly explains why some of the country’s stars are more inclined than they used to be to seek moves abroad.

The suspension of the league after the Port Said disaster, when more than 70 spectators were killed in violence at an Al Masry versus Al Ahly match in early 2012, had far-reaching consequences, and though domestic fixtures resumed in 2013, an atmosphere of wider social instability remains.

Salah’s journey to European football is an illustration.

He was taken on by Basel after Egypt’s Olympic team played a friendly against the Swiss club in March 2012. Basel asked Salah to stay on for trails and there was little reason to return to Cairo – Arab Contractors, his club, had no imminent fixtures because the league had been suspended. The Egyptian club was happy to enter into negotiations that would yield a €1.5 million (Dh7.45m) fee.

Salah has gone from strength to strength since, and Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, sees him offering something unique to a squad with plenty of options already in attacking midfield.

“He likes to attack the space behind defenders, which will be important against defences who play high up the field,” said Mourinho, who may give Salah his first Premier League action tomorrow, against Newcastle United.

Shikabala, meanwhile, will have to be more patient, and probably watch the Lisbon derby kick off from the bench, savouring its special ambience and perhaps recalling the several resonant Zamalek-Ahly derbies in which he had a knack of supplying decisive interventions.

“I feel like an ambassador for Egyptians, and I want to succeed here to give a good image of my country,” he told Sporting fans. “And I want to live up to sportinguistas’ expectations of me.”