Ahmed Ajab… the story of the most expensive Kuwaiti player who played abroad

Abu Ajab Al-Ajeeb, one of the most prominent Kuwaiti football strikers, who was the most expensive Kuwaiti player to play abroad in 2009.

He is the Kuwaiti star Ahmed Saad Ajab Al-Azmi, who was born on May 13, 1984 in Kuwait City. He studied at the College of Education and graduated from it in 2008. He comes from a sports family. His two brothers, Muhammad and Mujbal, are former football players, and his younger brother, Khaled Ajab, played for the Kuwaiti club, and his younger brother Faisal joined Al-Qadisiyah club.

Ajab played football since childhood, when he joined Al-Sahel Club and trained in it between 1994-2003, then started playing with the team in 2004, and in his first season 2004-2005, he scored 10 goals, and in the 2005-2006 season he scored 12 goals out of a total of 24 for the club. During the Kuwaiti League, and in the 2006-2007 season, Ahmed scored 7 goals out of 14 for the club in the league, to end his career in Al-Sahel Club, playing the biggest role in the club’s emergence in the Kuwaiti League.

With the beginning of the 2007-2008 season, Ahmed Ajab joined Al-Qadisiyah, and on April 4, 2008, he scored 3 goals during the Al-Jahra match, and won a number of titles and honors, the most important of which are: the title of top scorer in the Crown Prince Cup, and the top scorer in the Kuwaiti League by scoring 18 goals for both titles. He was Kuwait’s top scorer for that season after scoring 20 goals.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Wasat chose him as the best player in the 2007-2008 season, by scoring 541 points, and he was among the 15 candidates for the Asian Player of the Year award.

After his outstanding success with Al-Qadisiyah Club, offers began to flock to Ahmed Ajab, the first of which was the offer of the Saudi Al Shabab Club to contract with him on loan at a value of one million Saudi riyals, but the offer was rejected.

On January 25, 2009, the president of Al-Qadisiyah Club, Sheikh Talal Al-Fahd Al-Sabah, announced the loan of Ahmed Ajab for an amount of $750,000, $250,000 of which was in favor of Ahmed Ajab.

On February 3, 2009, he played his first match with the club in the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Cup, but his injury prevented him from completing the match, and on February 14, he participated in the Abha match during the Saudi Crown Prince Cup, which ended with the victory of Al-Shabab Club 2-1.

On February 18, he participated in the Al-Fateh match, and contributed to Al-Shabab club’s qualification to the semi-finals of the tournament after scoring the only goal in the match, and that was his last match, as he was absent due to his injury, so the loan deal ended on March 31, 2009.

Ajab returned to Al-Qadisiyah and continued with it until 2012, then moved on loan to Al-Salmiya Al-Kuwaiti for a year, then returned again to Al-Qadisiyah, and in 2014 he moved to Al-Nasr Al-Kuwaiti, then returned to Al-Qadisiyah to write the last chapter of his football career.

At the international level, Ahmed Ajab joined the ranks of the Kuwait national team, and played his first match on January 2, 2008 against Lebanon, in which he achieved great success by scoring 3 goals, turning the defeat into a 3/2 victory. He also participated in Kuwait’s friendly match against Oman and scored the equalizer to end Match 1/1.

Ahmed Ajab also participated in the 2010 Asian Cup qualifiers, where he played in the Iran-Kuwait match, which ended in a 2/2 draw, during which he was awarded the best player award.

On June 8, 2008, he scored 3 goals out of 4 in the Syria match, which ended 2/4, and on June 14 of the same year, he scored two equalizing goals in the UAE match, but the match ended with the victory of the UAE team.

He was also part of the 2009 Gulf Cup squad, and played several matches, most notably the opening match on January 4, 2009 against the Omani national team; He also participated after that in the Bahrain match, which ended with a 1/0 victory for Kuwait, and his third match was against Iraq, then he participated in the Saudi national team match, which ended with a 1/0 victory for Saudi Arabia.