Mounir El Hamdaoui

Mounir El Hamdaoui (منير الحمداوي; born 14 July 1984) is a former professional footballer who played as a forward.

Born in the Netherlands, he represented Morocco internationally.

He played for clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax and Málaga CF, as well as Excelsior, Derby County, Willem II, AZ Alkmaar and Fiorentina.

In the 2001–02 season the player made his debut for the Rotterdam side under manager Adrie Koster, scoring two goals in six appearances.

El Hamdaoui played a total of 74 league matches for Excelsior, scoring 32 goals.

Excelsior big brother Feyenoord was also interested in signing the player, and El Hamdaoui trained a number of times with Feyenoord's first squad, but a transfer was never realised.

In January 2005 English club Tottenham Hotspur, managed by fellow Dutchman Martin Jol, signed El Hamdaoui from Excelsior on a three-and-a-half-year contract.

He never made an appearance in the Premier League.

In September 2005 El Hamdaoui joined Derby County on loan.

He made six appearances, scoring two goals before a dislocated shoulder forced the loan to be cut short.

Derby continued to monitor his progress and in January 2006 he returned to Pride Park for another loan spell.

This too was to be disrupted due to injury, a groin problem forcing him to return to Tottenham in early March.

This second loan deal was not cancelled, but after returning to duty with Derby in April, a further injury problem prematurely ended his season.

In June 2006, El Hamdaoui moved back to his native Netherlands to play for Willem II, due to a lack of opportunities at Spurs.

On 19 August 2006, he marked his league debut for Willem II by scoring in their 2–1 victory against FC Utrecht.

After an impressive start scoring three goals in four matches he again suffered an injury which prevented him playing for nine months.

El Hamdaoui only played seven competitive matches for the Tilburg side, scoring three goals.

In his second season at the Willem II, he left the club after two league matches to join AZ.

On 31 August 2007, El Hamdaoui signed with AZ Alkmaar until 2011 as a replacement for Danny Koevermans who left for PSV Eindhoven.

On 16 September 2007, he scored on his debut for AZ in a league match against Sparta Rotterdam.

By the end of his first season at AZ, he had scored 7 goals in 23 league matches.

In the 2008–09 Eredivisie, El Hamdaoui was named Dutch Footballer of the Year and became the Eredivisie top scorer as AZ Alkmaar won their second league title in their history.

Born in the Netherlands, El Hamdaoui played for their under-21 side.

The 2008–09 season proved to be an excellent one for El Hamdaoui and AZ.

He scored in the first game of the season against NAC Breda, although AZ lost 2–1.

By the winter break, he had scored 16 goals in 17 league matches, including a hattrick against his old club Willem II.

At the winter break, AZ was leading the league table, and El Hamdaoui was leading the goal-scoring charts.

By the end of the season, AZ had won the second championship in their history, and El Hamdaoui was the top scorer in the Eredivisie, with 23 goals in 31 matches, one more than Ajax's Luis Suárez.

He was also named the Dutch Footballer of the Year.

He decided to represent Morocco, for whom he made his debut in February 2009 in a match against the Czech Republic, and played at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.

Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, El Hamdaoui went through the youth academy of S.B.V. Excelsior, where he played together with his youth friends Robin van Persie and Saïd Boutahar.

At the beginning of the 2009–10 season, there were a lot of changes at AZ.

Manager Louis van Gaal had departed the club to go to FC Bayern Munich, and was replaced by Ronald Koeman.

Defending champions AZ had a bad start to the season, although El Hamdaoui still managed to score 9 goals in 11 matches by the winter break.

AZ found themselves in eighth place with 28 points in 20 matches, 24 points behind leaders PSV.

Just before the winter break, Koeman was fired and veteran manager Dick Advocaat was brought in to take over.

Russia manager Advocaat stated that he expected at least 15 or 16 goals from the player, El Hamdaoui stated "Advocaat knows what he's talking about, I think. It gives me confidence, I know what I can do."

On 30 July 2010, El Hamdaoui signed a four-year deal with Ajax, rejoining with his former Spurs manager Martin Jol.

El Hamdaoui marked his league début for Ajax with two goals against Groningen on 8 August 2010.

He scored a goal in the play-off round second leg of the 2010–11 UEFA Champions League against Dynamo Kyiv, helping Ajax win 2–1 on aggregate and ending a five-year drought from this competition.