Ayman Ashraf, the club’s defender, celebrates Al-Ahly The former and current National Bank celebrated his 33rd birthday today, Tuesday. He was born on April 9, 1991. Ayman Ashraf began his football career with Al-Ahly Club. He is one of the team’s juniors, as his first match in the red shirt was against the Police Union when Gilberto left the team. He also participated in Al-Ahly and Zamalek match in the 2010 season, in the match that ended in a positive draw with three goals for each.
Ayman Ashraf played for four clubs during his career with the Round Witch, starting among the Al-Ahly club’s youth team, before moving to Beni Suef and then to Smouha, before returning to his home in the Red Castle in the 2017/2018 season, then he left for the National Bank.
Ayman Ashraf played out of position for an entire season and excelled as a defender in the 2017 season when Hossam El-Badry took over the leadership of the Red Team and employed him in the heart of the defense after the injuries that struck the team’s defenders. Ashraf shone and proved his feet in this position, and when Al-Ahly needed him in his main position as a left back, he performed. Also as required.
Ayman Ashraf was one of the key pieces of the Swiss Rene Weiler, the former coach of Al-Ahly, because he is distinguished by his ability to remove the ball with ease and high accuracy from the defensive line, and his ability to also play in more than one position. Weiler used Ayman Ashraf in the heart of the defense and the left front and chose him at the expense of Tunisian Ali Maaloul in some matches. The mission is like the Sudanese Al-Hilal match in the African Champions League.
The situation did not differ with the arrival of the South African Pitso Mosimane, the former coach of Al-Ahly, who relied mainly on the joker Ayman Ashraf, but with the arrival of the Swiss Marcel Kohler, the current coach of Al-Ahly, the picture changed completely, and Ayman Ashraf did not appear in any official match with the team to pack his bags and leave the castle. Al-Hamra heading to the National Bank.
In total, Ayman Ashraf participated in 215 matches with Al-Ahly, with a total of 16,907 playing minutes, during which he scored 5 goals, assisted four others, and received 49 yellow cards in addition to two red cards.
Ayman Ashraf won 12 championships with Al-Ahly, including five league titles, the African Champions League twice, the African Super Cup twice, the Egyptian Cup once, and the Local Super Cup twice, in addition to winning the bronze medal in the Club World Cup twice.
September 16, 2016 will remain etched in Ayman Ashraf’s memory, as his mother was with his sister in Alexandria to visit Ayman, but fate wanted them to be involved in a traffic accident that led to their death. That night was like a nightmare for Ayman Ashraf, as he remembered it two years later and wrote on his Twitter page, “Two years ago, the two most precious to me passed away. I try to forget in order to know how to live, but every day something happens that reminds me of them. I would have preferred losing memory, but unfortunately I remember all the details. I no longer feel any pain, as long as there is no more pain than this.”
“Ayman Ashraf’s words, if they indicate anything, indicate his deep sadness during that period, and that sadness was not matched by his misfortune in 2015 when he injured his cruciate ligament while he was on the threshold of the Egyptian national team during the time of coach Shawky Gharib, and he was absent from the stadiums for a long time, so the misfortunes continued for Ayman Ashraf. However, with the passage of time, he knew how to heal his wounds, return to normal life, and turn a sad page that may remain in his memory, but it did not affect his football career, even though at the beginning of the shock he thought about retiring from the football club and retreating away.
But Ayman Ashraf returned and chose to remain steadfast and open a new page in his life, which was his joining the Red Castle, and he succeeded in shining despite the difficult task of defending Al-Ahly and the Pharaohs.