Ali Ghazal

Youth

Born in Aswan, Ghazal grew up in Cairo playing football on the streets. His father and uncle were both former footballers. His nephews were invited to a trial with El Sekka El Hadid and asked Ghazal to go with them where he impressed the club's coaches and was offered a contract. His performances with El Hadid attracted attention from both Zamalek, where he trained with the squad for a month, and Al Ahly but transfers to both clubs collapsed over El Hadid's asking price. Mohamed Abbas who had worked as a coach with Zamalek during Ghazal's spell there was eventually appointed manager of Wadi Degla and persuaded him to join the side at the age of fourteen. Degla were owned by Egyptian businessman Maged Sammy who also owned Belgian side Lierse and arranged a trial with the club when Ghazal turned eighteen. Ghazal later commented on his relationship ship with Sagny, stating "Samy is like a big brother to me, one of those who really believed in me from the very start, he made sure I trained well and even got me a personal English tutor to improve my language." He spent a month on trial with Lierse but was not offered a contract.

Nacional

Having been turned down by Lierse, Ghazal instead assembled a video of him playing for Degla's youth team and sent it to a scout he met online. The scout sent the video to coaches of Portuguese club Nacional, who submitted an offer to sign Ghazal and the transfer was completed in 2012 for a fee of €40,000. After arriving…

After playing for the Egyptian under-20 side, Ghazal received his first call-up to the senior squad under manager Bob Bradley in 2013 but did not feature. He made his international debut under Bradley's successor Shawky Gharieb, being named in the starting line-up for a 2–0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on 5 March 2014. He earned four further caps in 2014, including two in Egypt's unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. Ghazal later criticised Egypt manager Héctor Cúper over his continued omission from national team squads, commenting "I play well with Nacional so it's normal to join the national team as there are players (who have) failed to save regular places in their team, but they have been called for the camps." In 2018, he held talks with Cuper over returning to the national team for the 2018 FIFA World Cup but was not included.

As of 23 June 2018