Hicham Zerouali

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Hicham Zerouali (17 January 1977 - 4 December 2004) was a Moroccan footballer who played for Aberdeen.

'Zero' (as he was nicknamed by the Aberdeen fans) was a striker signed by Ebbe Skovdahl in 1999. He became the first player in Scotland to wear the shirt number '0' in 2000 and in one of his more memorable outings scored a hat-trick against Dundee.^[1]

In January 2000 'zero' scored a stunning 30 yard freekick in a fourth round Scottish cup tie away to St. Mirren to take the tie to a replay, Zerouali then scored in the 2-0 replay win at Pittodrie to help Aberdeen into the next round of the cup. Aberdeen eventually earned a place in the final of the cup, thanks to the help of Hicham Zerouali, nicknamed the 'Moroccan Magician'.

In 2000, Hicham was injured during a match against Motherwell, and subsequently missed out on a place at the Sydney Olympic Games.^[2]

After falling out of favour at Aberdeen, Zerouali moved to play his football in the United Arab Emirates with the team Al-Nasr for a year,^[3] before returning to live in his home country of Morocco in 2003, signing for the football team FAR Rabat.

Zerouali won 17 caps for the Morocco national team and scored three goals. He featured for Morocco in the African Nations Cup in Mali in 2002, and scored two goals in a 2-1 win over Burkina Faso. He also played in the 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship.

Tragically, Hicham Zerouali was killed in a car accident in Rabat in December 2004 aged 27.^[4] Only the previous Saturday, he had scored two goals in a league game for his club. He is survived by a daughter to his wife in Aberdeen. The club have retired the "0" shirt number in his memory.