Waleed Abdullah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waleed Abdullah
Personal information
Full name Waleed Abdullah Ali
Date of birth April 19, 1986 (1986-04-19) (age 22)
Place of birth    Saudi Arabia
Height 1.92 m (6 ft 3+12 in)
Playing position Goalkeeper
Youth clubs
Al-Shabab
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
2006- Al-Shabab
017 (0)
   
National team2
2007- Saudi Arabia 2 (0)

1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only and
correct as of March 13, 2008.
2 National team caps and goals correct
as of February 6, 2008.
* Appearances (Goals)

Waleed Abdullah (Arabic: وليد عبدالله‎) (born April 16, 1986) is a Saudi Arabian football (soccer) player for the Al-Shabab football club based in Riyadh. He is Al-Shabab's first goalkeeper and was also the Saudi Arabia Olympic team's first goalkeeper during their participation in the 2008 Asian Olympic Qualifiers. Ever since June 2007 he has been called to the Saudi Arabia national football team in every participation.

[edit] His career with Al-Shabab

Waleed Abdullah began playing on a regular basis with Al-Shabab in the 2007-2008 season. In the 2006-2007 season he was busy playing with the Saudi Olympic team in their qualifiers, so he had no chance of playing with Al-Shabab as their first goalkeeper.

[edit] Olympics

Waleed Abdullah played 11 games with the Olympic team during the 2008 Qualifiers, in which he helped the team reach the second round, and was close to qualifying had they won against Japan in Tokyo in the last game. Waleed's best game was against Japan in Tokyo, where he stopped many dangerous Japanese attacks, and stopped the Japanese from scoring.

[edit] National team

Waleed first joined the Saudi Arabia national football team for the AFC Asian Cup 2007. His first official game was a friendly against United Arab Emirates in June 2007, which ended 2-0 for Saudi Arabia. He also played another friendly against Oman, and it ended 1-1. Right before the beginning of the Asian Cup, Waleed received news of the death of his infant daughter. But he decided to stay with the national team, and was one of the players in Saudi Arabia's squad in the Asian Cup, but didn't get any play time during the cup itself.

After the Asian Cup he has been called a couple of times, a friendly against Ghana which ended 5-0 for Saudi Arabia, and the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers against Singapore which ended 2-0, and recently been called for the Uzbekistan qualifier on March 26. Yet he hasn't started for the Saudi national team during these occasions.