Waleed Abdullah

Waleed Abdullah

Personal information
Full name	Waleed Abdullah Ali
Date of birth	April 19, 1986
Place of birth	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Height	1.96 m (6 ft 5 in)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current team	Al-Shabab
Number	1
Youth career
	Al-Shabab
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
2006–	Al-Shabab	74	(0)
National team^‡
2006–2007	Saudi Arabia U-23	11	(0)
2007–	Saudi Arabia	69	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 30 August 2014. ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 14:12, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Waleed Abdullah (Arabic: وليد عبدالله‎‎; born April 19, 1986) is a Saudi Arabian football (soccer) player for the Al-Shabab football club based in Riyadh. He is Al-Shabab's first goalkeeper and was also the Saudi Arabia Olympic team's first goalkeeper during their participation in the 2008 Asian Olympic Qualifiers. He has been the 1st choice goalkeeper for the Saudi Arabia national football team since 2007.

Club career

Waleed Abdullah began playing on a regular basis with Al-Shabab in the 2007–08 season. In the 2006–07 season he was busy playing with the Saudi Olympic team in their qualifiers, so he had no chance of playing with Al-Shabab as their first goalkeeper.

International career

Olympic Team

Waleed Abdullah played 11 games with the Olympic team during the 2008 Qualifiers, in which he helped the team reach the second round, and was close to qualifying had they won against Japan in Tokyo in the last game. Waleed's best game was against Japan in Tokyo, where he stopped many Japanese attacks and stopped the Japanese from scoring.

Senior Team

Waleed first joined the Saudi Arabia national football team for the AFC Asian Cup 2007. His first official game was a friendly against United Arab Emirates in June 2007, which ended 2-0 for Saudi Arabia. He also played another friendly against Oman, and it ended 1-1. Right before the beginning of the Asian Cup, Waleed received news of the death of his infant daughter. But he decided to stay with the national team, and was one of the players in Saudi Arabia's squad in the Asian Cup, but didn't get any play time during the cup itself.

After the Asian Cup he was called up a couple of times, for a friendly against Ghana which ended 5-0 for Saudi Arabia, and the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers against Singapore which ended 2-0, and for the Uzbekistan qualifier on 26 March 2008.

External links

• Waleed Abdullah at National-Football-Teams.com