Mostafa Ziko #11

Profile

Mostafa Mohamed Zaki Abdelraouf – AKA Ziko – has taken the long road into the national team. From Shibin El-Kom he worked his way through Haras El Hodoud, ZED and Pyramids to take his place among Egypt’s elite. His proud mother says his rise came after “years of effort and challenges”, adding that he had to take responsibility too early in life when his father died when Ziko was just 11. His Egypt debut could hardly have gone better. In the warm-up friendly against Russia in Cairo he came on and scored the only goal of the match with a second-half header. Afterwards he said that “even if I had scripted the scenario myself, I could not have imagined my debut going this way”. Ziko is not expected to be a starter this summer – Egypt’s positions up front are crowded, with Mohamed Salah, Omar Marmoush, Trezeguet, Ibrahim Adel and others ahead of him. But his value may be as a bench player who can cover several attacking roles and arrive without the burden of expectation carried by the bigger names.

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