Hassan Shehata

Hassan Shehata (حسن شحاتة; born 19 June 1947) is an Egyptian retired football manager and former professional football player.

He played as a forward.

Hassan Shehata was born on June 19, 1947 in the city of Kafr El Dawwar, Beheira into an athletic family.

He began playing football since he was ten years old when he was a student in Kafr El Dawwar primary school, then at Salah Salem Commercial Secondary School.

As a child, Shehata joined Kafr El Dawwar Club, one of the Egyptian Second division A clubs at that time.

After a friendly match with the Bahari team against the national team, Mohamed Hassan Helmy, the national team manager, offered him to join Zamalek, a he agreed.

In his first match with Zamalek, which was held in November 1966, Shehata succeeded in scoring a Hat-trick as Zamalek won 4-0.

After the outbreak of the 1967 war, the local competition in Egypt stopped, and Shehata joined the Kuwaiti football club Kazma SC.

Shehata was called for the Egypt national football team in 1969, where his first international match was a friendly against Libya, in which Egypt won with a single goal scored by Hanafi Halil and assisted by Shehata.

He achieved several successes in Kuwait, including winning the best player in Asia award in 1970.

Thus, Shehata is the only player to win the title of best player in a continent other than his home one.

He was also recruited into the Kuwaiti Armed Forces and participated with the Kuwaiti national team in the World Military Championship in Bangkok, Thailand.

He also participated with the Kuwait national football team in the AFC Asian Cup.

Shehata returned to Egypt in 1973 to continue his career with Zamalek.

He played for Egypt in 70 international matches and participated in 4 African Cup of Nations, winning the title of the best player in the 1974 African Cup of Nations.

Shehata won the “Best Player in Egypt” award in 1976 and the Order of the Republic, first class in 1980.

During his time as a player in Zamalek, he won the Egyptian League in the 1977-78 season, and Egypt Cup for three times in the 1975, 1977, and 1979 seasons.

He scored a total of 77 goals in the Egyptian League, five goals in Egypt Cup, and six goals for Zamalek in the African Championships.

Shehata was famous for the goal he scored in one of the Cairo derby’s Zamalek vs Al-Ahly matches, which was canceled as the strangest goal canceled by a player due to offside.

Shehata retired as a player in 1983.

After brief spells, helping in the relegation of El Sharkia SC, El Minya SC, and Suez SC to the Egyptian premier league.

In 2003, Shehata managed Egypt national under-20 football team to win the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations and played in the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship.

He managed Al Mokawloon Al Arab SC and won the 2004 Egypt Cup and the 2004 Egyptian Super Cup, winning Al Ahly and Zamalek in the finals, respectively.

In 2004, Shehata became Egypt's national team coach after the sacking of Italian coach Marco Tardelli.

As a manager, Shehata led Egypt to three consecutive Africa Cup of Nations titles, in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

He was the first ever coach to win three consecutive Africa Cup of Nations titles.

Shehata is one of only two coaches to win the Africa Cup three times, along with Ghana's Charles Gyamfi.

In the 2006 African Cup of Nations, hosted by Egypt, he led the team to its first Cup of Nations in eight years, defeating the Ivory Coast in the final.

During the 2006 African Cup semi-final against Senegal, Shehata had a serious argument with one of his players, Mido.

As a result, Mido reacted negatively to being substituted.

Shehata was vindicated minutes later when Amr Zaki, the player replacing Mido, scored the winning goal; which took Egypt to the final.

Shehata did allow Mido to accept his medal at the closing ceremonies of the African Cup of Nations.

Following the incident in a few days, Mido issued a public apology.

As mentioned earlier, Shehata led Egypt to three successive titles at the African Cup of Nations in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Thus, Egypt became the first African nation to achieve such record.

Consequently, the Egyptian team were ranked as high as 9th in the FIFA World Rankings.

Due to his great coaching ability throughout during that period, In 2008, he was awarded the title of CAF Coach of the Year.

In 2010, FFHSI had ranked him as the best African Coach.

He was also selected as one of the top five African coaches internationally.

In 2015, he became President of the SATUC Football Cup, a new charitable global football competition for U16 orphans, refugees and disadvantaged children.