Bandar Al Ahbabi.. The career of the best Emirati player 2022

One of the most prominent UAE players in recent seasons, owner of the Golden Ball for the best Emirati player in the 2022 season, after he snatched it from the two stars Ismail Matar and Ali Saleh.

He is Bandar Muhammad Saeed Saleh Al-Ahbabi, the right winger of the Emirati club Al-Ain and UAE national team, who was born on July 9, 1990, and began his football career early, as he participated in a league in the school ranks, under the supervision of an Egyptian physical sports coach called Ismail, who believed in his abilities and helped him join the academy of Al Ain Club, but his father took him out of the academy at the age of 12, so that his academic level would not be affected. His mother helped him by returning him to the academy without the knowledge of his father, who later learned, and with Bandar’s insistence on continuing, he finally got his father’s approval.

Despite his early start with Al Ain in 2000, and his progression through the senior stages (he won the Arabian Gulf League under 21 seasons 2009/2010 and 2010/2011), he caught the attention of Brazilian coach Antonio Cereso when he was playing for the under-19 team, and he called him up to the first team, where he played the first match with him in 2010 in the cup tournament against Ajman, but he did not get the opportunity to play in the starting lineup, so he preferred to leave and was loaned to Al Dhafra Club in 2012 for two years.

Then he moved to Baniyas in 2014, the year that witnessed his call-up to the first national team, and 4 years after leaving Al Ain, the club brought him back again with a 3-year contract, to be the first player in the club’s history to leave and return in a deal for a fee, achieving many achievements with the team. Achievements; UAE League on 3 occasions (2012, 2018, 2022), President’s Cup 2018, League Cup 2022, runner-up in the Super Cup 2018, runner-up in the AFC Champions League 2016, and runner-up in the Club World Cup 2018.

At the international level, Bandar was called up to the first team on February 23, 2014, as part of the roster participating in the 2015 Asian Cup qualifiers. He also participated in the 2014 Asian Games and the 2019 Asian Cup in its seventeenth edition, which was hosted by the Emirates and the Emirati Whites finished in fourth place.