Doha: Following in the footsteps of the most well-known and prestigious European and international football academies, the Aspire Academy in Qatar has been able over the past two decades to carve its name among the most powerful sports academies in the Middle East and the world. The academy aims to discover Qatari sports talents and aid their development.
Aspire became a roaring success through brilliant names such as Almoez Ali, Akram Afif and Abdelkarim Hassan who were behind Qatar’s national team’s glory, especially after being crowned as champions of the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019. Additionally, those names are among the ranks of Al Annabi when they will make their first-ever World Cup appearance.
Qatar winning the AFC Asian Cup title for the first time in their history was a big surprise, especially since the team played away from its fans, successfully leaving its mark on the global and continental arenas.
After the AFC Asian Cup championship, many questions about the secret behind this success were asked. The answer was Aspire Academy, or as it is commonly called “The Star Factory”.
Others see it as the cornerstone of the Qatar team’s successes, especially in the presence of a distinguished generation of players, who grew up together from a young age at the academy.
The academy was established in 2004, as part of Qatar’s strategy to transform into a leading country in sports, with the aim of discovering talented people at an early age and developing their skills by providing them with a sports and academic environment.
Aspire Academy is the internationally-recognized national sports academy, developing young sports talents and rendering them into outstanding athletes in Qatar. It may be noted that the academy’s role is not limited to talent discovery in football only, as it focuses on a variety of sports.
The academy offers world-renowned sports programs and contains facilities that symbolize the sporting ambitions of the State of Qatar. Aspire includes a private school, 12 football fields and the largest indoor and air-conditioned gymnasium in the world.
In addition, the academy has an Olympic swimming pool for swimming and diving competitions, an indoor-athletics court, an indoor-soccer field in accordance with FIFA standards, table tennis courts, squash courts, multi-disciplinary courts for multiple sports, a fencing piste and another for gymnastics.
The services available in the academy also include a number of gyms, a centre for the development of football performance and sciences with international technical specifications in the field of sports sciences and performance development, two well-equipped student housing buildings, a restaurant and a medical clinic equipped with the latest equipment to provide first aid, a library, and lecture and meeting halls.
Aspire celebrated the graduation of the 15th batch of its student athletes last June, bringing the number of its graduates to 650 athletes since its establishment, more than half of them in football. It also served as a prominent source of support for Qatari clubs and national teams, providing outstanding players who changed the face of Qatar sports, both continentally and globally.
The brightest among the academy’s stars include Almoez Ali: the top scorer in the last edition of the Asian Cup with 9 goals and the best player in the tournament. Saad Al Sheeb: the best goalkeeper, with only a single goal escaping him. Akram Afif: the provider of the highest number of assists in the tournament and the Best Asian player in 2019. In addition, Abdelkarim Hassan: Asian Player of the Year for 2018.
In addition to them, the academy succeeded in preparing Bassam Al Rawi, goalkeeper Yousef Hassan, Ahmed Alaaeldin, Homam Al Ameen, Asim Madibo, Tareq Salman, Salem Al Hajri, Abdulrahman Fahmy, Khaled Munir, Tamim Al Muhaiza, Mohammed Al Bakri, Ahmed Moeen, Ahmed Al Saadi and other players who contributed to the success of their teams.
In the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, 15 players of the academy’s graduates participated in the Al Annabi ranks, which returned to Doha coming from the United Arab Emirates with the Asian Cup. Aspire Academy graduates were also the main pillar of the Qatar team that won the Asian U-19 champions in 2014.
As the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is around the corner, it is expected that the Qatari National Team, coached by Spaniard Felix Sanchez, will include 19 Aspire Academy graduates.
The Annabi stars will have a chance at writing history, by raising the banner of the challenge high, competing against football's giants.
The contributions of Aspire Academy did not stop at the formation of big stars in football, but also included the graduation of other brilliant athletes crowned with global and continental titles in various sports such as athletics, most notably Motaz Barshim, the world champion and Olympic high jumper, and Abu Bakr Haider, the Asian champion in the 800M race in 2019, Abdullah Al Tamimi in squash, Ashraf Al Saifi in the hammer throw, Moaz Ibrahim in the discus, Bassem Hamida in the 400M hurdles, and Awab Barrow in the 110M hurdles.
The academy has been working over the past years to create a generation of rising stars in a variety of sports such as fencing, table tennis, swimming and other sports.
In this context, it is also worth noting the Spanish Aspire generation creator Felix Sanchez, who started his career with Al Annabi youth and won the AFC U-19 Cup title with the team, before completing his second mission to ascend to the FIFA U-20 World Cup New Zealand 2015.
In 2019, a new chapter had begun, following his success with the youth team and achieving bronze in Asian U-23, the Spaniard presented himself as a strong candidate to lead the first Qatari team to victory, helping Qatar win the Asian Cup for the first time in their history.
Sanchez said in previous statements that Qatar had a wonderful football development plan, and certainly the Aspire Academy is one of the reasons for this development, adding that many players grew up there and the academy worked on developing them before their clubs continued the process. What the national team achieved was the result of teamwork and with good planning, successes are possible, he explained.
This young generation and other stars who were embraced and developed by the academy did not disappoint. They succeeded in returning the favour with a title that will remain firmly in their minds. The plans of the State of Qatar in the sports field and the insight of the officials were correct.
They realized that building a distinguished team that achieves titles and raises the name of Qatar high starts from caring for the youth, and not just the first team only.
Qatar created a well-defined sports strategy that relied on long-term planning to prepare a generation capable of honouring Qatari sports in general and competing in various team and individual sports.
Aspire Academy generation was praised by the most prominent football stars, such Xavi Hernandez, former Al Sadd player and coach, and current manager of FC Barcelona, who said that it was a wonderful place and that he was very happy to be part of this huge project.
PSG star Lionel Messi also spoke about the academy when he visited it, saying that he visited many countries and seen many academies, but none of them can be compared to what is here, adding that Qatari boys are lucky.
Brazilian football legend Pele praised the role of the academy, saying that he was as young as these youth when his dream to become a footballer began, stressing the importance of providing them with the opportunity that he missed.
Source: QNA
