“Beware the Asian Cup’s most entertaining player!”, warned Australia’s newspapers as the Socceroos prepared to face the UAE for a place at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup final, the host nation’s publications heaping praise on the Whites’ flamboyant talisman.
After showing glimpses of his ability at the London 2012 Olympics, Omar Abdulrahman had finally blossomed into one of Asia’ finest playmakers by the time the quadrennial continental competition rolled around, his cheeky Panenka in the penalty shootouts quarter-finals win against reigning champions Japan declaring to the continent that this was a man brimming with confidence and fearing none.
Australian defender Trent Sainsbury vowed ahead of the game to “get in Abdulrahman’s face” and duly delivered, while also chipping in with a goal in the 2-0 victory en route to continental glory on home soil.
Disappointment Down Under it was for Abdulrahman and company, as the UAE’s number 10 was pipped to the tournament’s MVP award by the hosts-turned-champions’ own playmaker Massimo Luongo.
Fast-forward seven years and the careers of Abdulrahman and Luongo have taken contrasting yet somehow nearly identical paths. The Emirati swapping sides almost every season with stints at Al-Hilal, Al-Jazira and Shabab Al-Ahli all blighted by injury after injury while national team appearances stopped in 2019 — about the same time his Australian counterpart last appeared in a Socceroos shirt following an injury-ridden career in England’s second and third tier.
When the UAE and Australia locked horns again in the quarter-finals of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and the Whites triumphed on home soil, taking revenge for the defeat of four years earlier, neither Abdulrahman nor Luongo were on the pitch; in fact, Abdulrahman missed out on making the squad for the home tournament through one of his endless injuries.
But then there was the 2022 AFC Champions League, where Abdulrahman returned to Shabab Al-Ahli’s starting XI amid an abundance of doubts over whether this was another false dawn for the midfielder, by now already on the wrong side of 30 and with a record of no less than three anterior cruciate ligament injuries.
A carefully planned introduction was well managed by none other than Mahdi Ali, the coach under whom Abdulrahman made his first exploits in a UAE shirt, including at Australia 2015. After 20-minute cameos in the first two games, Abdulrahman made his first AFC Champions League start in more than four years when he was named in the starting XI to face Al-Gharafa in Matchday 3, playing 66 minutes in a 1-1 draw.
It was in the reverse fixture a few days later that those murmurings grew louder: “Could he really be back this time?”
Abdulrahman ran the show from start to finish. The Qatari defenders were left to collect their dropped jaws as he darted into the box following a quick exchange of passes with teammate Thomas Olsen before taking an effort that was parried by the goalkeeper into the path of the Norwegian who headed home the opener inside 20 minutes.
He then went on to supply the pre-assists for the second and third goals, and Federico Cartabia and Mohammed Juma for the fourth and fifth goals after the restart in an 8-2 thumping; the biggest result ever in the competition for his team. This was vintage Abdulrahman resurrected, the playmaker who singlehandedly led Al-Ain’s charge to the AFC Champions League final in 2016 and was dubbed the best player not plying his trade in Europe or South America at some point.
Rodolfo Arruabarrena is taking charge at the national team ahead of a crucial junction of the qualifiers where the UAE are two games from reaching the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, the closest they have come since reaching Italia 1990. Abdulrahman’s return to form earned him a recall to the national team setup, and once more we are left to ask: “Could this be it?”
Luongo has long faded out of Graham Arnold’s plans for the Socceroos, but Abdulrahman showed steely determination to come back into the fold. His career has to date been defined by coming oh so close for club and country; third place in the AFC Asian Cup, runner-up in the AFC Champions League and an unsuccessful trial at Manchester City. Now the 30-year-old has a final chance to change that legacy and go the last mile when it really matters.
Expectations are dampened by a recent history of recurrent injuries, but in the absence of two of the Whites’ most talented attacking players — Fabio Lima and Khalfan Mubarak — Emirati fans can only hope that this time Abdulrahman has risen from the ashes to silence his doubters and pull one last rabbit out of his magician’s hat, having been written off by so many.
Should the 2016 Asian Player of the Year pull off the greatest of all comebacks and guide the Whites to FIFA World Cup qualification after 32 years of hurt, there will be little doubt to his status as the greatest footballer this nation has ever produced.
