Mohamed Zidan

Mohamed Abdallah Mohamed Zidan (محمد عبد الله محمد زيدان; born 11 December 1981) is an Egyptian former professional footballer who played as a striker.

Mohamed Zidan was born in Port Said to an Egyptian family.

His career started as a striker for his hometown club El Masry in 1998.

Al-Masry dropped Zidan because of a perceived lack of passing ability, leading to his family moving to Denmark.

In his first year in Denmark, while training with B93 for a contract, he played a few games for the Danish-Turkish club FC Anatolien, now Kokkedal BK, in Nivå in Northern Zealand.

Zidan was scouted by the Danish Superliga club Akademisk Boldklub (AB) while he was juggling a ball at a Danish park in 1999.

In June 2003, he moved to the league rivals FC Midtjylland (FCM), as AB experienced financial hardship.

At FCM, he became the league's top scorer in the 2003–04 season, and he was awarded the Rookie of the year award, becoming Player of the Year the following season.

In all, he scored 30 goals in 47 appearances for FC Midtjylland, and especially his nine goals in the first three games of FCM's newly built SAS Arena stadium, made the stadium colloquially known as "Zidan Arena".

Zidan's performance in the Danish League had resulted in several top European clubs gaining interest in signing the striker.

In the winter break of the 2004–05 season, he was loaned by German club Werder Bremen for the remainder of the 2004–05, with an option to buy in the summer.

In the summer of 2005 he was bought by Werder for a fee believed to be around €3.5 million.

On 31 August 2005, Zidan was loaned out to Mainz for the 2005–06 season.

He went on to score nine goals in 26 appearances, seven as a substitute for Mainz.

The most notable show of talent was in a game against Bayern Munich during the 2005–06 season.

Zidan earned a man of the match award when he dribbled past Philipp Lahm and scored against Oliver Kahn.

Whilst loaned to Mainz, Zidan scored a goal against the club he was contracted to, Werder Bremen, in 14 seconds.

This marked it as the fastest goal scored in the Bundesliga season and is ranked sixth as the quick fastest scored goals in the Bundesliga's history.

In an interview with Bild in Germany, Zidan admitted that he had high aspirations and had ambitions to play in either "Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool or Manchester United".

He stated that he wanted to play for Barcelona within the next three years to play alongside Brazilian sensation Ronaldinho or Liverpool to play with Steven Gerrard.

In the 2006–07 pre-season friendly matches, he retained his form with Werder Bremen, starting six of the seven matches he had played and scored four goals.

Zidan's performance in the semi-final match of the 2006 DFB-Ligapokal against Hamburger SV on 1 August 2006, including bagging a goal in the 50th minute, earned him the man of the match award and ensured his club's qualification to the cup final.

However, after a trail of injuries, Zidan was on the receiving end of less playing time.

Zidan's run of good form during the 2006–07 season fueled many transfer rumors, and major clubs as Hamburger SV, newly crowned German champions VfB Stuttgart and several Spanish clubs were named as possible future clubs.

After months of speculations, following the limited playing time and injuries, Werder Bremen announced on 16 January 2007 that Zidan would be transferred to Mainz for a reported 2.8 million Euros fee, which made it the largest ever purchase in the club's history, passing his medical on 17 January 2007.

He scored six goals in the first 5 matches with his new club, catapulting the team from last, to 10th place on 1 March 2007 with 27 points.

The Egyptian talent also received 50% of votes by the Kicker magazine, and earned himself the title of "Player of the month" in February in Germany, while Mainz became "Team of the Month" in the German Bundesliga.

Fans of Mainz loved Zidan since his loan spell with the red shirt in which he managed to dazzle them with his skills, talent, and goals.

During the 2007 season Zidan contributed many spectacular goals, but could not save Mainz from relegation.

The club had only been able to score 34 goals in the entire season, 13 of which, despite having played for less than half of a season, came from the Egyptian forward's feet.

Unfortunately Zidan's hard-work and valuable solo contribution was insufficient to prevent Mainz from the depths of despair of being relegated to the second division.

However, Zidan's work was noticed by number of top established clubs based in Spain, France and England as well as German champions VfB Stuttgart.

Mainz manager Christian Heidel was very keen to keep Zidan at the club, so the club could mount a promotion challenge for the 2007–08 2. Bundesliga season.

On 3 June 2007, Zidan passed a medical and thereby completed his move to HSV.

He said that he always wanted a move to the north-German club, because he still has many ties to Denmark.

The transfer fee was suspected to be about €5.8 million.

Zidan was handed the number 7 shirt, a number previously worn by Hamburger SV prized player and Iranian captain, Mehdi Mahdavikia.

Zidan proved himself as a capable striker and could adjust to the new team in friendly games, often scoring when substituted or scoring four goals when he played the full game.

Mohamed Zidan scored his first official goal for Hamburger SV in the away DFB-Pokal match versus Holstein Kiel.

However several appearances in Hamburg's start to the Bundesliga saw Zidan goalless, and often substituted off before the full 90 minutes of the game.