Majid Mohammed Abdullah

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Majid Abdullah
Majed Abdullah in 1984.jpg
Majid Abdullah (1984)
Personnel
Surname Majid Ahmed Abdullah Mohammed
birthday January 11, 1959
place of birth Jeddah ,  Saudi Arabia
position striker
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1977-1998 Al-Nasr 168 (190)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1978-1994 Saudi Arabia 139 0(71)
1 Only league games are given.

Majid Ahmed Abdullah Mohammed ( Arabic ماجد أحمد عبدالله المحمد, DMG Māǧid Ahmad ʿAbdullāh al-Muḥammad ; * January 11, 1959 in Jeddah ) is a former Saudi Arabian soccer player . He is the record scorer in Saudi Arabia and has been a member of the FIFA Hundreds Club since 1988 . In 1999 he finished third in the election for the best Asian player of the century.

childhood

Majid Ahmed Abdullah Mohammed was born in Jeddah in 1959 as the son of a football coach . He moved to Riyadh with his family at the age of six after his father accepted a job coaching the Al-Nasr junior team .

Career as a football player

Youth and amateur time

It was there that Abdullah first came into contact with football, but initially played as a goalkeeper for the juniors before he moved into the storm at the age of ten. In the development of his footballing talent, the left-footed Majid was increasingly supported by his father.

Al-Nasr

At the age of 16, Abdullah Ljubiša Broćić , the Yugoslav coach of Al-Nasr, noticed during a training session and the club signed him on November 9, 1975. At Al-Nasr he often trained with his father and in addition to the support of the Saudi Prince Abdul Rahman bin Saud al Saud , Broćić let him train with the A-team shortly afterwards. Abdullah played his first game in 1976 as part of a stay abroad in Great Britain against an English second division team and scored a goal in the 4-0 success of Al-Nasr - but it also injured himself. His first appearance in an official game followed on January 14, 1977 when he took a position in the storm in a friendly against a Moroccan club . A short time later, he made his debut as a substitute in the 70th minute in a competitive game of the newly founded Saudi Professional League against Al-Shabab . He scored the first competitive goal in a game against Alwidah . Ultimately, he played five times in a team that finished second in the league (out of eight teams).

In the second season the league was expanded to ten teams and again Al-Nasr reached second place. Abdullah was the second most successful goalscorer in the league, although he had to take a break due to injury. In his third season, when he played alongside players like Rivalinho , he won the top scorer award with 13 goals. The next runner-up, however, did not satisfy the management of Al-Nasr and so they dismissed Abdullah's "mentor" Broćić. Under the new coach Chico Formiga , he finally won the championship title in 1980 and Abdullah was top scorer for the second time in a row with 17 goals. There were also four goals on the way to victory in the Saudi Arabian King's Cup and the total of 21 goals ensured that he won the Golden Shoe as the top scorer in the Arab countries. Injuries threw Abdullah back frequently between 1981 and 1985, which also had an impact on the Saudi national team. From 1986 the performances stabilized again and by 1990 he was three times victorious in the King's Cup and once in the championship. The next titles after difficult years at the beginning of the 1990s followed in the middle of the decade with another championship (1995), the Golf Club Cup in 1996 and 1997, and the Asian Cup Winners' Cup in 1998 . The victory in the final of the last-mentioned competition, in which Abdullah scored a goal for Al-Nasr, also marked the end of Abdullah's career at Al-Nasr. After the resignation of Abdullah, Al-Nasr decided not to wear the number 9 shirt he was wearing forgive another player. In total, he had scored 189 league goals for Al-Nasr over the course of his career. In 20 seasons he scored a total of 324 goals.

Saudi national team

Abdullah had only played five first division games for Al-Nasr when he was first called up for the junior national team in 1977 to take part in a friendship tournament in Tabriz , Iran . In that tournament, Majid was the top scorer with seven goals and the Saudi Arabia team finished second. This did not go unnoticed by the senior national coach and shortly afterwards he appointed him to the senior squad for Saudi Arabia for the first time . After only five games with Al-Nasr, Abdullah had made it into the national squad. As a result, he would be part of the national team without interruption until his resignation in 1994. The first game he played for the national team was a friendly against Benfica Lisbon . Here Abdullah scored two goals, especially his goal after a solo run on his own half received wide attention. Along with other talented young players, the Saudi national team improved in the years that followed, until Saudi Arabia was recognized as one of the best Asian teams in the late 1980s. The decade had started disappointingly with another failure in qualifying for the soccer World Cup in 1982 and the Brazilian world champion coach Mário Zagallo made some progress without achieving anything "countable", but in 1984 the team around Abdullah took care of the new, popular Saudi coach Chalil al-Zayani for a big surprise. Under al-Zayani the first qualification for an Olympic football tournament was achieved and the initially injured Abdullah scored six goals in the decisive phase. At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles itself, Saudi Arabia then lost all three games, with Abdullah scoring his only goal against Brazil (1: 3).

In December 1984, Saudi Arabia took part in the Asian Football Championship for the first time , and in the tournament Abdullah and his men prevailed against higher-rated teams such as South Korea , Kuwait , Iran and in the final China - in the final, Abdullah made it 2-0. Final score. Four years later, Abdullah repeated this success with Saudi Arabia, with the Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira now on the sidelines. After Abdullah scored the only goal in the semifinals against Iran, the final against South Korea went to penalties, which Saudi Arabia won 4-3. The next and final highlight in Abdullah's national team career was in 1994 when Saudi Arabia qualified for a soccer World Cup . There Saudi Arabia even made the surprising advance into the second round and Abdullah's two missions were also the last international appearances for his country.

Statistics in the national team

  • Debut on May 4, 1978: Saudi Arabia 6-0 Pakistan (in Riyadh)
  • Farewell on June 26, 1994: Saudi Arabia 1-0 Belgium (in Washington DC)
  • Participation in the 1994 World Cup: 2 games, no goal
  • Participation in the 1984 Olympic Games
  • Statistics: 139 games - 67 goals (including friendly and unofficial games, he even scored 209 goals)

Career after football career

Abdullah is currently working as a commentator for a Saudi Arabian sports channel.

Title / Awards

With the national team

With the club

Individual awards

  • 3 × Asian Footballer of the Year (1984, 1985 and 1986 (unconfirmed!))
  • 6 × top scorer in the Saudi Professional League (1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1986 and 1989)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FIFA Hunderterklub ( German ) In: fifa.com . Retrieved October 15, 2010.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Abdullah, Majid Mohammed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abdullah, Majed Mohammed
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saudi Arabian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Jeddah