Essam Kamal Tawfiq El Hadary (; born 15 January 1973) is an Egyptian

goalkeeping coach An athletic coach is a person coaching in sport, involved in the direction, instruction, and training of a sports team or athlete. History The original sense of the word ''Coach'' is that of a horse-drawn carriage, deriving ultimately from the ...

and former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

. Nicknamed the "High Dam", El Hadary spent the largest portion of his club career with

Al Ahly Al-Ahly Sporting Club (), commonly known as Al-Ahly, is an Egyptian professional sports club based in Cairo, Egypt. The club is mainly known for its professional football team which currently plays in the Egyptian Premier League, the highest ...

, with whom he won seven

Egyptian Premier League The Egyptian Premier League (), also known as the Nile League () for sponsorship reasons, after the addition of title sponsor Nile Developments, is a professional association football league in Egypt and the highest level of the Egyptian football ...

s, four

Egypt Cup The Egypt Cup (also known as the Egyptian FA Cup and formerly as the King Farouk Cup) is the main knockout football cup competition in Egypt. It is the oldest club competition in Africa. The first team to win the trophy was Zamalek in 1922. Al A ...

s, four

Egyptian Super Cup The Egyptian Super Cup is Football in Egypt, Egyptian football's annual match contested between the champions of the Egyptian Premier League season and the holders of the Egypt Cup. If the Egyptian Premier League champions also won the Egypt Cup ...

s, three

CAF Champions League The CAF Champions League, known for sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League and formerly the African Cup of Champions Clubs, is an annual football club (association football), club football competition organized by the Conf ...

s, three

CAF Super Cup The CAF Super Cup, known as TotalEnergies CAF Super Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual African association football competition contested between the winners of the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup. The competition was f ...

s, one

Arab Club Champions Cup The Arab Club Champions Cup (, ) is a club football competition organised by the Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA) and contested by top clubs from the Arab world. The tournament is contested by a total of 37 teams from Asia and Africa. F ...

, and two

Arab Super Cup The Arab Super Cup () was an Arab football (soccer), football competition, held between four teams (the winners and runners-up of both the Arab Champions Cup, Arab Club Champions Cup and the Arab Cup Winners' Cup) each year. History The Arab Supe ...

s. Third on the list of all-time appearances for

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, El Hadary made 159 international appearances for his nation between 1996 and 2018. He won the

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations, commonly abbreviated as AFCON and officially known as the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is the main biennial international men's association football competition in Africa. It is s ...

four times, and was named the tournament's best goalkeeper on three occasions. In the

2018 World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in l ...

, at the age of 45 years and 161 days, he became the oldest player in history to play in a World Cup match. After his retirement, he was very close to being the goalkeeping coach of Étoile Sahel of Tunisia, to be part of the technical staff under the leadership of

Jorvan Vieira Jorvan Vieira (born 29 September 1953) is a Brazilian-Portuguese football coach and former player who played for Botafogo, Vasco da Gama and Portuguesa in the Brazil Serie A, and current manager. Career Playing career Vieira was born in Duque ...

after agreeing to sign the contract, but his mother's illness forced him to step back in the end.

Club career

El Hadary was born in Kafr El Battikh,

Damietta Damietta ( ' ) is a harbor, port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the Nile Delta, from the Mediterranean Sea, and about north of Cairo. It was a Cath ...

. His father was a craftsman who owned his own workshop making furniture. El Hadary took up playing football without his parents' knowledge, washing his muddy clothes in a local river after playing in order to avoid them knowing. He was spotted by his local football team before being signed by Second Division club

at age 17. In his first training session, he was offered goalkeeping gloves, having previously never worn a pair, but refused to wear them and would run the to training every day. He made his first team debut for Damietta in 1993 at the age of 20, and after two seasons signed a pre-contract with Egyptian champions

. In 12 years at the Cairo club he won eight

titles, four

s, four

titles, three

s, one

, and two

s. Swiss club

FC Sion Football Club Sion, commonly known as simply FC Sion or Sion, is a Swiss Association football, football club from the city of Sion, Switzerland, Sion. The club was founded in 1909 and play their home matches at the Stade Tourbillon. They have wo ...

announced that they had signed El Hadary on a four-year contract in February 2008, despite objections from his club, Al Ahly, due to the fact that he was still under contract with them. El Hadary was fined and suspended by Al Ahly, before world governing body FIFA gave permission for Sion to complete the deal. In 2009, FIFA suspended El Hadary and penalized Sion, even though he had already decided to return to Egypt. In July, while his suspension was stayed by the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; , TAS) is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its courts are located in New York City, Sy ...

(CAS), El Hadary moved to Egyptian Premier League side

Ismaily Ismaily Sporting Club () is an Egyptian football club, established on 20 March 1921 as El Nahda Sporting Club () ( Egyptian pronunciation: Nady El Nahda), based in Ismaïlia, Egypt. The club is best known for its football team. Also it's consi ...

. In 2010, his four month suspension was upheld by the CAS, and in January a Swiss civil court upheld the ban and fines and additionally ordered him to pay FIFA's court costs. In December 2010, after a brief stint with

Zamalek Zamalek ( , ''al zamalek'') is a ''qism'' (ward) within the West District (''hayy gharb'') in the Western Area of Cairo, Egypt. It is an affluent district on a man-made island which is geologically a part of the west bank of the Nile River, wit ...

, he played for the Cairo giants for only one season. In 2011, El Hadary moved to Sudanese club Al-Merreikh. After boycotting practices due to a pay dispute, he was loaned to Al-Ittihad Alexandria, but after a stadium riot in Port Said led to the suspension of the

2011–12 Egyptian Premier League The 2011–12 Egyptian Premier League was the fifty-fifth season of the Egyptian Premier League since its establishment in 1948. The season began on 14 October 2011, with a total of 19 teams contesting the league. Al Ahly won the last seven lea ...

season he returned to Sudan again. After his contract with Al-Merreikh expired, he returned to Egypt, joining Wadi Degla in 2013, moving back to Ismaily in 2014, and returning again to Wadi Degla in 2015. Throughout this period, he continued to be acclaimed one of the best footballers ever to play for Egypt or anywhere in Africa; in 2013 he was included in

Bleacher Report ''Bleacher Report'' (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sports and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London. ''Bleacher Report'' was acquired by Time Warner's Turner B ...

's "50 Greatest African Players of All Time" list, ranked number 6. In 2017, an argument with a teammate led to El Hadary being thrown off the Wadi Degla team briefly. In June of that year, he signed for Al-Taawoun to become the first foreign goalkeeper to play in Saudi Arabia. On 2 July 2018, it was confirmed that El Hadary had joined

for the third time in his career. On 28 January 2019, El Hadary signed with Nogoom. However, he left the club following their relegation at the end of the season. On 18 November 2020, El Hadary announced his official retirement in order to start his coaching career.

International career

El Hadary represented

a total of 159 times from his debut in 1996 until his retirement in 2018. He won the

African Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations, commonly abbreviated as AFCON and officially known as the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is the main biennial international men's association football competition in Africa. It is s ...

four times with his country. He was chosen as the best goalkeeper in the 2006 African Cup of Nations, held in homeland Egypt, in the

2008 African Cup of Nations The 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, also known as the MTN Africa Cup of Nations due to the competition's sponsorship by MTN, was the 26th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial football tournament for nations affiliated with the Confeder ...

, held in Ghana and for the

2010 African Cup of Nations The 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, also known as the Orange (telecommunications), Orange Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, was the 27th Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial association football, football championship of Africa (Confederat ...

, held in Angola. In January 2013, his agent

tweeted A tweet (officially known as a post since 2023) is a short status update on the social networking site Twitter (officially known as X since 2023) which can include images, videos, GIFs, straw polls, hashtags, mentions, and hyperlinks. Around ...

that El Hadary had retired from international football after being benched for a run of games, being the 23rd most capped international player in history and also the player with most African Cup of Nations titles. He returned to the national team in a match against Bosnia Herzegovina on 5 March 2014, winning 2–0. On 4 June 2016, El Hadary played the full 90 minutes in a 2–0 win against

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

which secured Egypt's qualification for

2017 Africa Cup of Nations The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (abbreviated as AFCON 2017 or CAN 2017), known as the Total 2017 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, was the 31st edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's football champions ...

. On 17 January 2017, two days after his 44th birthday, he became the oldest player to ever appear in an

match after replacing Ahmed El-Shenawy in Egypt's first match of the tournament then on 5 February 2017 on a final match of the tournament against

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

he was then 44 years and 21 days. On 1 February 2017, El Hadary saved two penalties as Egypt defeated

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

4–3 in a penalty shoot-out to advance to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations Final. In June 2018, at the age of 45, he was named in Egypt's 23-man squad for the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

in Russia. He was the oldest of all players selected for the tournament, beating the record by Colombian goalkeeper Faryd Mondragón in the previous edition of the tournament. On 25 June, El Hadary was handed a start in Egypt's final group match against

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

to become the oldest player ever to play in and debut at a

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

at the age of 45 years and 161 days, once again breaking Mondragón's record of 43 years and three days. El Hadary stopped a penalty kick in the first half of the match, but subsequently conceded from a second penalty just before half time; his team eventually lost the game 2–1 after conceding a goal in stoppage time. On 7 August 2018, El Hadary announced his international retirement at the age of 45. In November 2019, the FIFA World Football Museum exhibited El Hadary's gloves of his World Cup match for being the tournament's oldest player and the first African goalkeeper ever to save a penalty.

Post-playing career

In September 2021, El Hadary became the goalkeeping coach of Egypt national team until March 2022, before joining Rogério Micale's Egypt U23 staff in August 2022. In February 2023, he became part of

Héctor Cúper Héctor Raúl Cúper (; born 16 November 1955) is an Argentine football manager and former player who was most recently head coach of the Syria national team. As a player, he was a defender who spent most of his career at Ferro Carril Oeste, w ...

's coaching staff of Syria national team.

Career statistics

International

Sources:

Honours

Al Ahly *

: 1996–97, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07 *

: 2000–01, 2002–03, 2005–06, 2006–07 *

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

, 2007 *

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

Sion *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

: 2008–09 Al Merreikh *

Sudan Premier League Sudan Premier League () is the top division of the Sudan Football Association, it was created in 1965. It starts on August 1 and ends May 31. Sudan Premier League Clubs (2024–25) Championship history Performance by club Double Titles ( ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

Sudan Cup The Sudan Cup is the top knockout tournament of the Sudanese football (soccer), football. It was created in 1990. Preliminaries Pegin 1 Agustus / End 31 May *Round 32 ( Sudan Premier League Clubs and National League 1 Clubs) *Round 16 *Quarte ...

: 2012, 2013 Egypt *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Pan Arab Games The Arab Games (), also known as the Pan-Arab Games, are a regional multi-sport event held between nations from the Arab world. They are organized by the Union of Arab National Olympic Committees. The first Games took place in 1953 in Alexandr ...

Egypt Military *

World Military Cup The World Military Cup is an international association football competition contested by national military teams. Organized by the International Military Sports Council (CISM), the tournament was first held in 1946 under the title World Military ...

: 2001 Egypt U23 *

All-Africa Games The African Games, formally known as the All-Africa Games or the Pan African Games, are a continental multi-sport event held every four years, organized by the African Union with the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa and the ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

;Individual * CAF Champions League Best Goalkeeper:

* Africa Cup of Nations Best Goalkeeper:

References

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hadary, Essam 1973 births Living people Egyptian men's footballers People from Damietta Egypt men's international footballers Egyptian expatriate men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Al Ahly SC players 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup players 1998 African Cup of Nations players 2006 Africa Cup of Nations players 2008 Africa Cup of Nations players 2010 Africa Cup of Nations players FC Sion players Swiss Super League players FIFA Men's Century Club 2000 African Cup of Nations players 2002 African Cup of Nations players Al Merrikh SC players Africa Cup of Nations–winning players Wadi Degla SC players 2017 Africa Cup of Nations players Al Taawoun FC players Saudi Pro League players Expatriate men's footballers in Saudi Arabia Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Expatriate men's footballers in Sudan Egyptian expatriate sportspeople in Saudi Arabia Egyptian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Egyptian Premier League players 2018 FIFA World Cup players Ismaily SC players Zamalek SC players Al Ittihad Alexandria Club players Damietta SC players Egyptian expatriate sportspeople in Sudan Nogoom FC players CAF Champions League–winning players 20th-century Egyptian sportsmen

Club career

International career

Post-playing career

Career statistics

International

Honours

See also

References

Notes

External links