Muez still eyeing the big dream
Goalkeeper, El Muez Mahjoub has been a member of the Sudan national team since 2001, when he was a player of local side, El Maorada. At the time, he was also with the U-20 team.
Till now, Muez has never been outside of the Sudanese squad, spanning a period of 14-years, the longest ever recorded by any player in the national team in three decades.
“The coach who handed me my first call up to the national team was Ahmed Babiker, who was also my coach at El Maorada. When I was first selected for the national team, I was acutely apprehensive and felt that the selection was beyond my limited experience in the presence of seasoned goalkeepers like Ammar Mekki and Abubakre Sharif, because I was much younger than many outstanding players in Sudanese football at the time,” Muez recalls.
Thereafter he has posted the best record in continuous participation with the senior national team. He has participated in eight previous qualifiers of the African Cup of Nations, and will be making his ninth in the campaign for the AFCON 2017. He has also participated in two final tournaments; 2008 (In Ghana) and 2012 (Gabon and Equatorial Guinea).
“My first international match was against Eritrea, as a substitute and we won 5-1. That was the first time for me to sing the national anthem. But my first official match was against Zambia in 2003 which ended in a 1-1 draw. Our coach at the time was the Polish Vojtek Wazarek.”
Nonetheless, the Ghana 2008 tournament had a special flavour for a generation of Sudanese players, including Muez, because it was the first for Desert Hawks after a 32-year absence.
“We were only concerned with being present at the final tournament. That in itself was the greatest success of Sudanese football,” remarked Muez, who was first choice goalie at the championship and was in the post for matches against Zambia, Egypt and Cameroon at the group phase.
Muez boasts of huge experience in African football and has been the first choice for local giants, Al Hilal since 2004. He has played with the Omdurman-based club in continental championships such as the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup on countless occasions.
On the chances of the Desert Hawks in the AFCON 2017 qualifiers, where they are housed in Group I alongside holders Cote d’Ivoire, hosts Gabon and Sierra Leone, he opined that “we possess the ambition to compete with the teams in our group and to qualify for the finals in 2017 as the best team in the group. We will start the campaign against Sierra Leone next Sunday. It will be a difficult one because it is the first match. We will deal with the other matches as they come and will think only of the match ahead of us.”
On the local front, Muez holds the enviable record of being present in the national team for the past 14 years. But, at 32, El Muez is still eyeing a bigger dream.
“My dream is not only to reach the finals in Gabon in 2017; also to reach the final and win the trophy as captain of the team,” he concluded.