Osama Orabi

Osama Orabi
Personal information
Date of birth	25 January 1962 (age 62)
Place of birth	Cairo, Egypt
Height	1.72 m (5 ft 8 in)
Position(s)	Midfielder
Youth career
	Al Ahly
Senior career*
Years	Team
1982–1999	Al Ahly
International career
1988-1992	Egypt
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Osama Orabi (Arabic: أسامة عرابي; born 25 January 1962) is an Egyptian retired professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

Playing career

Early career

As a 13-year-old boy, Orabi attempted to join Al Ahly in 1975, but did not succeed. He unsuccessfully tried out once again at Al-Ahly in 1978. In 1981, he trained for two weeks with the first team of Arab Contractors but failed to impress the technical staff to sign him.

Encouraged by a friend named Abdul Moneim Muhammad Ali, Orabi was introduced to Ahmed Maher, Al-Ahly U-21 Manager. Maher decided to attach Orabi to the team in 1982.

Al-Ahly

Orabi first appearance with Al-Ahly's first team was in 1982–83 season against Olympic Alexandria, when Mahmoud El-Gohary was Al-Ahly manager and Abdel-Aziz Abdel Shafi was the Football Director. Orabi was introduced as a substitute for Mokhtar Mokhtar in the last 20 minutes of the match that was played in Alexandria. Al-Ahly won 6–0 as Zakaria Nasef scored 3 goals, Fawzi Scotty 2 goals, and Mokhtar Mokhtar 1 goal.

Orabi's professional football career began in the 1983–84 season and ended in the 1998–99 season. During this 16 seasons span, Orabi won 28 different championship titles with Al-Ahly. He achieved an unprecedented record for any player by winning the football league 10 times during his career.

National team

Orabi participated in the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy and played one of Egypt's three matches in the competition. He played the full match against Ireland, which ended in a 0–0 draw. The match was moderated by Belgian referee Marcel van Langenhove and took place in June 1990 in the city of Palermo.^[1]

Coaching career

After his retirement, Osama Orabi became the trainer of Al-Ahly's first team during the 2001–02 Egyptian Premier League season. Al-Ahly's technical staff at the time included the Portuguese manager Manuel Jose, the General coach Mokhtar Mokhtar, and the coach Hossam El-Badry in addition to Orabi. Al-Ahly won the National League Champions Cup and the African Super Cup under this technical staff management.

Osama Orabi raised to the first man position as he became the manager of Al-Sekka Al-Hadid and later Gasco in the Egyptian Second Division. On 6 June 2010, El-Entag El-Harby (a.k.a. Military Production) reached an agreement with Orabi to become the team manager with a one-season contract.^[2] Orabi will be leading El-Entag El-Harby in its second season in the Egyptian Premier League in its history.