By Mohamed Korime and Festus Chuma
In Damietta the name of Samih Bulbolh is synonymous with football since the late 1970s. A former footballer who became a football coach, Bulbolh is famous for discovering talents in the Northern African country of Egypt.
Regarded as the spiritual father to many in Egyptian football, Bulbolh discovered the greatest player of our time who is the current Egypt national team goalkeeper Essam Kamal Tawfiq El-Hadary in 1986 when he was just 14 years old in one of Ramadhan tournaments played in dusty town of Damietta.
It was such resolve that helped him to sign the African star to his first professional contract . Bulbolh had heard about the impressive talent making heads turn on the local tournament. So he went to watch him play and immediately knew there was something in the young boy.
“Allah created him to be a goalkeeper,” said an overwhelmed Samih Bulbolh in an interview with soka25east.
Bulbolh met El-Hadary when he was small boy who potrayed small body that did not look in any way athletic but had a promising talent.
From that he saw it wise to groom him as he continued training under him as a goalkeeper for Damietta Stadium Center youth team .
Bulbolh remembers when El-Hadary was just 16-year-old he stayed away two weeks something that was a matter of concern to his fellow players.
“He stayed away for two week something that made the captain of the side at that time , Izzat Abdul Raziq come to me crying asking for El-Hadary,” he added.
It was an issue that drove Bulbolh have special attention to the young goalkeeper.He immediately made arragements to sign him with Damietta Stadium Youth FC where El-Hadary made his first appearance in a local tournament.
From that point he has seen the player rise to become one of the best players of all times in Africa. El-Hadary has represented Egypt 144 times, winning the African Cup of Nations four times with his country. He was chosen as the best goalkeeper in the 2006 African Cup of Nations, held in homeland Egypt and in the 2008 African Cup of Nations , held in Ghana and he was the best goalkeeper for the 2010 African Cup of Nations , held in Angola.
In January 2013 there were some reports that El-Hadary had retired from international football after being benched for a run of games but he still remained the 23rd most capped international player in history and also the player with most African Cup of Nations titles.
The ever young El-Hadary 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 which secured Egypt’s qualification for 2017 Africa Cup of Nations .
On 17 January 2017, two days after his 44th birthday, he became the oldest player to ever appear in an Africa Cup of Nations match after replacing Ahmed El-Shenawy in Egypt’s first match of the tournament.
“I felt I am the happiest one in the whole world when he managed to save two penalties during the Burkina Faso match semi-final of the African Cup of Nations that helped Egypt national team book a place in the finals”,recalled Bulbolh.
