Mohammad Abu Fani (or Mohamad Abo-Fani, ar, مُحَمَّد أَبُو فَانِيّ, he, מוחמד אבו פאני; born 27 April 1998) is an Arab-Israeli professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Hungarian club

Ferencvárosi TC Ferencvárosi Torna Club, known as Ferencváros (), Fradi, or simply FTC, is a professional football club based in Ferencváros, Budapest, Hungary, that competes in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I, the top flight of Hungarian football. Ferencváros wa ...

and the Israel national team.

Early life

Abu Fani was born in

Kafr Qara Kafr Qara ( ar, كفر قرع, he, כַּפְר קַרִע; also spelled ''Kafr Qari'') is an Arab town in Israel southeast of Haifa. In its population was . Kafr Qara holds the record for doctors relative to population size in the country with ...

, Israel, to a Muslim-Arab family. His father Sami Abu Fani, a former local footballer, supported Mohammad’s football career from a young age. He has 2 sisters, Rawan and Lareen.

Club career

On 13 May 2017 Abu Fani made his debut for

Maccabi Haifa Maccabi Haifa ( he, מכבי חיפה) is one of the biggest sports clubs in Israel and a part of the Maccabi association. It runs several sports clubs and teams in Haifa which have competed in a variety of sports over the years, such as Football ...

in a 0–1 loss to

Bnei Sakhnin Bnei Sakhnin F.C. ( ar, اتحاد أبناء سخنين, he, איחוד בני סכנין, ''Ihud Bnei Sakhnin''; ''Ittihad Abna Sakhnin'', ) is an Israeli football club based at the Doha Stadium in Sakhnin. They are the most successful club ...

, coming in as a substitute at the 46th minute. At youth level, Abu Fani was part of the Maccabi Haifa U-21 team which won two consecutive championships, in 2015–16 and 2016–17, as well as reaching the

UEFA Youth League The UEFA Youth League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the youth teams of the clubs competing in the UEFA Champions League ...

play off stage. On 15 June 2023 signed for 4 years for

International career

Since youth, he played for both the U19 and the U21 national teams of Israel, appearing in 18 matches, and scoring 3 goals (U19 only). He made his senior debut for

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

on 8 October 2020 in a

UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs The play-offs of the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying tournament decided the last four teams that qualified for the UEFA Euro 2020 final tournament, to be staged across Europe in June and July 2021. Unlike previous editions, the participants of the play- ...

away match against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Honours

Maccabi Haifa *

Israeli Premier League The Israeli Premier League ( he, ליגת העל, ''Ligat Ha`Al'', ), is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Israeli Football League – the state's league of Israel. The league is contested b ...

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, 2021–22,

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Israeli Toto Cup The Israel Toto Cup ( he, גביע הטוטו, ''Gvia Ha'Toto'') is an association football tournament that features clubs in the two highest divisions in Israel: the Israeli Premier League (Ligat Ha'Al), and the second division Liga Leumit. From ...

: 2021–22 *

Israel Super Cup The Israel Super Cup, also known as the Champion of Champions ( he, אלוף האלופים, Aluf HaAlufim), is an Israeli association football club competition played as a single match between the winner of the latest Israeli top league champion ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abu Fani, Mohammad 1998 births Living people Israeli men's footballers Arab citizens of Israel Arab-Israeli footballers People from Kafr Qara Maccabi Haifa F.C. players Hapoel Ramat Gan Givatayim F.C. players Hapoel Hadera F.C. players Ferencvárosi TC footballers Israeli Premier League players Liga Leumit players Nemzeti Bajnokság I players Israeli expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Hungary Israeli expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Israel men's youth international footballers Israel men's under-21 international footballers Israel men's international footballers Men's association football midfielders Israeli Muslims