For certain players, dreams come true. That’s the case with Egypt’s long-time goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, who after 158 caps for his country will finally have the opportunity to take his very first World Cup bow. It’ll happen in a couple of hours. When he steps on the Central Stadium’s field in Ekaterinburg, he’ll also make history by becoming the oldest player to ever participate in a World Cup game. Retired Colombian goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon holds the current record. He was 43 years old when he stood on Colombia’s goal against Japan during the last World Cup in Brazil.
“I did not imagine that I would play until this age, but I had a dream to play at the World Cup and this was a big motivation.”
“Sometimes the media highlight a record for me that I did not know anything about but setting a record at a prestigious tournament like the World Cup makes me happy.”
Egypt’s captain began his career in 1993 and debuted for the national team the year when the youngest member of this squad, Ramadan Sobhi, was born. Other than breaking Mondragon’s record as the oldest World Cup player ever, El-Hadary nearly set another less significant one. His daughter was engaged to Mahmoud Kahraba, a member of Hector Cuper’s 23-man squad. It turned out that Kahraba was previously engaged to another woman, so the wedding was called off. If that didn’t happen, then El-Hadary and Kahraba would have become the first father-in-law and son-in-law to play together at a World Cup.
The ageless wonder is nicknamed “The High Dam” after a dam in Egypt that bears the same name. His shot-stopping skills have echoed throughout the country whose national jersey he so passionately defends. Born in 1973, El Hadary had to hide from this father that he was playing football since he was given only two options growing up: be a part of the family’s woodworking business or go to school. The youngster would take the school books with him to training and wash his dirty clothes in the river on the way home.
Second-division club Damietta noticed him when he was 17, but it took a year for El-Hadary to gather the courage, to tell the truth to his father. Soon after that, he was called up to be a back-up for the national team. Since he didn’t have a car, a friend would drive him to national team practice sessions. The 45-year-old goalkeeper joined Al Ahly in 1996 and spend 12 years there, before making an unsuccessful move to Europe. He spent one season in Swiss club Sion, before returning to his native land. He’s currently a member of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Taawoun. Despite actively playing football for 24 years and becoming the oldest player in World Cup history, Essam El-Haddary does not have plans to retire any time soon.
“Hadary’s fighting spirit is out of this world. Naturally, a player’s fighting spirit wanes as he grows older but for him, the opposite exactly happens. The fighting spirit that he boasts helps him avoid the kind of problems that are usually associated with age in football,”
“And this, in turn, makes him work much harder in training. Over the past 10 years, Hadary has been training harder than any ordinary and younger players, and that is the reason why he has been playing at the top level for so long.”
*quotes taken from https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/10/essam-el-hadary-egypt-world-cup-russia-2018