Abderrazak Hamdallah
Moroccan striker was world’s top scorer in 2019
Who was the world’s leading scorer in club football in 2019? Not Lionel Messi (54 for Barcelona), or Robert Lewandowski (50 for Bayern Munich), or Kylian Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain. Instead, it was Morocco’s Abderrazak Hamdallah, who recorded 57 goals for Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr.
Aside from a season at Norway’s Aalesund, who signed him in 2013 from his hometown club Olympic Safi, the 29-year-old Moroccan has pursued a nomadic career outside of Europe.
His 19 goals in 30 games for Aalesund earned a move to China, where he started well enough for Guangzhou R&F before injuries and a falling-out with coach Cosmin Contra led to his departure after 18 months, to Qatari side El Jaish. In five years in the Middle East – first at El Jaish, then another Qatari club Al Rayyan, and now Al Nassr – Hamdallah has maintained a spectacular goal-agame scoring rate. At Al Nassr he finished the 2018-19 season as the Saudi league’s top scorer with 34, helping the club to their first league title since 2015 and claiming the award as the league’s best player.
After making his senior debut for Morocco in 2013 he drifted out of international contention before his scoring feats for Al Nassr earned a recall by then national coach Herve Renard ahead of last summer’s Africa Cup of Nations – only for the player to walk out of a pre-tournament training camp.
Officially, his departure was put down to an injury but it later emerged he had clashed with team-mate Faycal Fajr during a friendly against Gambia. Fajr had grabbed the ball from Hamdallah’s arms in order to take a penalty and, privately, Hamdallah complained of Europe-based cliques within the squad.
Hamdallah has done little to change perceptions of him as an outsider. He had rejected Renard’s initial invitation to play with Morocco in March last year, citing personal family reasons, then in November he announced his international retirement after turning down an invitation from Renard’s successor, Vahid Halilhodzic, who says: “He is a player with a lot of great potential, but he also has many flaws.”
Whether those flaws will prevent a European club from taking a chance on him remains to be seen. Sources at Al Nassr insisted he has a €20million release clause in his contract. At the age of 29, it may be too late to compete in Europe with the likes of Messi, Lewandowski and Mbappe.