Akram Afif

Akram Afif
Personal information
Full name Akram Hassan A. Y. Afif[1]
Date of birth (1996-11-18) 18 November 1996
Place of birth Doha, Qatar
Height 1.77 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position Forward
Club information
Current team
 Eupen
Number 87 [2]
Youth career
Al Sadd / Aspire Academy
2012–2014 → Sevilla (loan)
2014–2015 → Villarreal (loan)
Senior career*
Years Team Apps† (Gls)†
2015– Eupen 21 (7)
National team
2014 Qatar U19 5 (4)
2014–2015 Qatar U20 7 (1)
2015– Qatar 5 (1)

* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

† Appearances (goals)

Akram Afif (Arabic: أكرم عفيف‎; born November 18, 1996) is a Qatari football player of Tanzanian descent who currently plays for Belgian side Eupen as a forward. He also plays for the Qatar national football team and the Qatar national under-20 football team. He is considered to be one of the most promising players to emerge from Qatar.[3][4]

Personal

Afif was born in Doha, Qatar.[2] He has a brother, Ali Afif, who is a footballer for QSL side Lekhwiya. His father played for Tanzanian side Simba and later played in Somalia before relocating to Qatar and playing for Al Gharafa.[5] His mother, Fayza, comes from Yemen.[6]

He learned Spanish for his move to Sevilla.[7] In June 2015, he graduated from Aspire Academy.[8]

Club career

Youth career

He started off in the youth team of Al Sadd before moving to Spain to play for Sevilla's youth teams in October 2012.[9] He represented Sevilla in the 2013 Al Kass International Cup, netting a brace and earning an assist in the team's first match, which ended as a 3–0 victory against Aspire Academy.[10]

He later joined Villarreal's youth team.[11]

Senior career

In January 2015, he was signed by Eupen.[12] He scored a goal in his debut against Eendracht Aalst on 19 January.[13] On January 24 in his next match against Racing Mechelon, he assisted in three of his side's five goals.[14]

International career

Afif featured in Qatar U20's AFC U-19 Championship qualification campaign in 2014.[15] During the main tournament, he scored the lone goal in the final against DPR Korea to give Qatar the victory.[16]

He was called up to the senior national team in September 2015 by coach Daniel Carreño.[17] He scored in Qatar's 15-0 win against Bhutan on 3 September 2015 during the 2018 World Cup Qualification rounds. He also registered an assist in the match.[18]

References

  1. ↑ "Qatar beat India in AFC U-19 Qualifiers". gulf-times.com. 4 October 2013.
  2. 1 2 "AFIF Akram › KAS Eupen". as-eupen.be. Retrieved 2015-09-06.
  3. ↑ Mohammad Amin-ul Islam (9 October 2013). "Game on the rise in Asia". dohastadiumplusqatar.com. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "AFC U-16 Championship Preview: 5 players to look out for". goalnepal.com. 8 May 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  5. ↑ "من أجل عيون "الغرافة يونايتد"..عفيف يروي قصة الهروب من الهورسيد عبر كلمنجارو إلى الدوحة (Interview with Hassan Afif)" (in Arabic). Kooora.com. 17 May 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  6. ↑ "Akram Afif bleibt bescheiden: “Es ist nicht wichtig, dass Akram gewinnt, sondern, dass die AS Eupen gewinnt”" (in German). KAS Eupen. 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  7. ↑ "Champ Magazine". Aspire Academy. 2013. p. 27. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  8. ↑ "ASPIRE ACADEMY CELEBRATES GRADUATING CLASS OF 2015". aspire.qa. 16 June 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
  9. ↑ "انضمام أكرم عفيف ومعاذ يحيى لأشبيلية الأسباني" (in Arabic). Al Kass. 24 October 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  10. ↑ "Qatar’s Akram turns Sevilla’s spearhead". dohastadiumplusqatar.com. 24 April 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  11. ↑ "England U21s breeze past Qatar to start Toulon in style". The FA. 22 May 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  12. ↑ "AFIF COMPLETES BELGIAN MOVE". qfa.com.qa. 10 January 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  13. ↑ "Eendracht Aalst vs AS Eupen match report". theworldgame.sbs.com.au. 19 January 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  14. ↑ Von Boris Cremer (24 January 2015). "Afif mit Pfiff, Curto mit Wumms" (in German). grenzecho.com. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  15. ↑ "India U19 v Qatar U19". the-afc.com. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  16. ↑ "QATAR CLAIM AFC U-19 CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE WITH 1-0 WIN OVER DPR KOREA". the-afc.com. 23 October 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  17. ↑ "ضم أكرم عفيف لقائمة منتخبنا أمام بوتان .. واستبعاد سيبستيان ومشعل وإلياس وصديق" (in Arabic). 1 September 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  18. ↑ "LE QATAR EN MET 15 AU BHOUTAN! L’EUPENOIS AKRAM AFIF BUTEUR". lgfoot.be (in French). 3 September 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, May 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.