Al Ittihad Jeddah’s Moroccan striker Abdel Razzaq Hamdallah joins the list of athletes who have played their former teams on their grounds for the first time since their departure.
The match will be the first at the stadium of his former team, “Mrsoul Park,” since his move in the winter of last year, and the match will be his second against Al-Nasr after the return of the two teams last season. The Moroccan striker will advance the western team’s lineup against Al-Nasr at the top of the fifth round of the Saudi League.
Since his transfer to Al-Nasr club in 2018 till his departure to Jidda in 2021, Hamdallah has been the club’s most prominent star.
He twice won the Saudi League Championship and the Super Cup during this time, and he also won the championship’s top scorer award twice, with the first season seeing him finish with the most goals ever scored—34—in the league’s history. The second season saw him score 29 goals.
The Moroccan striker was preceded by a number of football players who transferred from the local championship to competing clubs, and their initial performances on the stadiums of their former clubs experienced various outcomes.
The players who switched to rival clubs are led by the late Dutch legend Johan Cruyff.
He moved to Feyenoord, one of the big three, for one year after winning all possible tournaments with the Ajax logo, where he led the team to the league podium for the first time in ten years, but a legend match, when the metropolitan team declined to extend his contract with him. The opening game of football at the Ajax stadium ended in an 8-2 defeat. He wasn’t involved in either of the two goals.
The most well-known player transfer between two rivals occurred in the year 2000 when Portuguese player Leos Figo switched from playing for Barcelona for five years to Real Madrid. The outcome of Figo’s first game at the “Camp Nou” was no better than Cruyff’s, as he left with a two-goal loss without a fight and the disdain of 100,000 Catalan supporters throughout the game.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a Swede, was well-known for switching teams frequently, but his move to Inter Milan after Juventus was demoted threw a cloud over his career. The Swedish striker who represents his country in international competition played in Turin for the first time in November 2007; nonetheless, the game ended in a 1-1 draw without him making an impact.
Carlos Tevez, an Argentine, began his playing career in English stadia with West Ham before switching to the Manchester United uniform on loan. Despite his brilliance, his contract was transferred to the city’s blue side. Manchester City, who at the time was defeated by four goals, was not satisfied with any of the three.
The Dutchman Robin van Persie chose to play for Manchester United after spending 8 years with Arsenal, which was criticised by the “gunners” fans.
One of the agreements reached between rival teams is the transfer of the Argentine Gonzalo Higuain. The international striker scored 36 goals in his final two seasons with Napoli, earning Juventus a 90 million euro bid for his services in the summer of 2016. However, the attacker’s debut game in the stadium of his old side did not leave his mark when it concluded. the encounter with a target like him without realising or accomplishing it.
Hamdallah joins the list of Cruyff and Figo in “Mrsoul Park.”
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