EP FORUMS
MULTIMEDIA
SURVEY CORNER
PROFESSIONALS
NATIONAL TEAM
BUSINESS WITH EP
CONTACT US
JOBS AT EP
Season Review: Hossam Ghaly

Date: 20-6-2006
Wrote: EP's webmaster Yasser Zohny

Before signing for the Spurs in January, Ghaly played a successful half season with Feyenoord. However, problems with the manager Erwin Koeman facilitated his transfer to England where he is yet to make his official debut.

Read also:

Egyptian midfielder Hossam Ghaly was a regular member of Feyenoord squad in all their preseason matches. He started the preseason preparation games with a match against Alphense boys. After that game, Ghaly participated in a couple more friendlies and assisted one of Feyenoord's goals before traveling to China to play in the Nanjing friendly tournament.


Ghaly helped Feyenoord to win the friendly tournament and participated in their impressive victory over the Spanish side Espanyol. However, Hossam was sent off in the final match versus Nacional after a harsh foul from the Egyptian.

Later on, Feyenoord continued to excel in the preseason matches and managed to defeat the Bundesliga side Hertha Berlin by three goals to nil!

The successful preseason was a clear sign that Feyenoord will have a good start in the Eredivise. They won their opening match versus NAC Breda. A week later, Ghaly scored his first goal in the season against Sparta Rotterdam in the game that ended in a 1-3 win for Feyenoord.

A week later, Ghaly and Feyenoord played an excellent game versus Ajax and won the match to keep themselves on top of the table for another week.

The Rotterdammers continued to impress later on and won versus NEC and Heerenveen. However, their UEFA cup start was a rather poor one as they lost two valuable points with their home draw versus Rapid Bucharest.

After the poor home result in the first leg match in UEFA cup, Feyenoord lost the 2nd leg by a single goal and Hossam Ghaly's performance in that match was subpar. The coach Erwin Koeman made Ghaly the main reason beyond Feyenoord's exit from UEFA cup as he claimed that Ghaly doesn't listen to his instructions and always try to dribble and lose the ball instead of playing simple football.

Despite the excellent form of Ghaly in all the Eredivise matches that he participated in, Koeman decided to drop him from the selection in Feyenoord's match against Utrecht after the Egyptian's poor performance in Bucharest match. Ironically, Feyenoord lost their first game in the Eredivisie in absence of Ghaly by three goals to one!

After the decision of Koeman to drop Ghaly from the selection, it was clear that Ghaly's Dutch future is in doubt.

However, Erwin Koeman was forced to bring Ghaly back to the main selection as the Japanese midfielder Ono suffered a long tern injury and Koeman had no other option but to bring the Egyptian midfielder back to the team.




The problems between Ghaly and his coach alerted Arsenal and Tottenham who were thought to be keen on signing the Egyptian player.

Through EP sources in Holland, Egyptianplayers.com learnt that there is no way back for Ghaly at Feyenoord. EP also predicted Ghaly's move away from Feyenoord in winter:

Feyenoord refused to comment any more Ghaly's issue and have even quietened it down. Many predicted that this is in order to keep a fine image of Ghaly alive, and not hype up the problem. There is only one reason why Feyenoord did this: to get a good price for Ghaly come winter.

The Egyptian continued the first half of season as a first team regular, and even scored a fine goal which was his 2nd in the season versus FC Groningen.

While the form of Feyenoord deteriorated a little after that, Ghaly remained in the selection and his good form kept him a titular in all the games. He also assisted versus Roda and helped Feyenoord to beat their bitter rivals PSV by a single goal.

Near the transfer window, Ghaly suffered a long term groin injury that kept him away from games and from representing Egypt in the African Cup of Nations in January.

Ghaly had a dream to play in the Premiership and his dreams came true in the transfer window as the Spurs made an official bid to sign the Egyptian who didn't hesitate to put pen to paper and sign for the English side to play alongside his compatriot and personal friend Mido who made a huge impression in the first half of the previous season.

Martin Job was optimistic about signing Ghaly and considered him as one for the future. The Dutch coach hinted that Ghaly will get his chance but it will most likely be in the coming season as he will be more fit and ready for the Premiership style of play.

As expected, the Spurs didn't use Ghaly in any of the official matches yet as Jol was aiming for Europe and didn't want to risk introducing new faces to the team at this critical time. The Egyptian saw action with the reserves who won the competition at end of season.

In the coming season, midfield changes are going to happen and this will hopefully give Ghaly a chance to be a starter in midfield. The Egyptian confirmed to EP that he can't wait to make his Spurs debut and EP hopes that he will not wait much before making his long awaited debut.

More season reviews soon...