Qatar’s ‘Maradona’ out to prove his worth on the Asian Cup stage

Qatar’s own “Maradona” is desperate for Asian Cup success after missing out on his country’s Gulf Cup of Nations triumph through injury last November.

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Khalfan Ibrahim – dubbed the “Maradona of Qatar” for his trickery and sublime dribbling – can be one of the stars of the tournament, Qatar manager Djamal Belmadi said yesterday.

“He has played eight years for the national team and hasn’t won a major trophy because unfortunately he was injured for the Gulf Cup,” the Algerian said.

“So, for sure, he has a lot of ambition personally, and also he knows that now he is in a team that has won already.

“Everybody wishes that he can reach his individual target and, of course, a collective target of having a great competition with the team.”

Winger Ibrahim has scored 22 goals for Qatar in 81 appearances, and some of them have been stunning.

The former Asian player of the year, 26, shot to fame when he scored an amazing individual goal for Al Sadd in Qatar’s season-ending Crown Prince Cup in 2012 against Al Rayyan. He picked the ball up deep in his own half before dribbling around several opposition players and banging it past the goalkeeper, a goal reminiscent of Diego Maradona’s solo goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.

The Qatari, who won the Asian Champions League with Al Sadd in 2011, is so good he has two nicknames – also going by “Khalfaninho”, a nod to former Brazilian World Cup winner and playmaker Ronaldinho.

'Young girls thinking of big ideas'

Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.

“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”

In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.

“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”

Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.

“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”

rpennington@thenational.ae