Fahad Saleh Al-Ghesheyan ( ar, فهد صالح الغشيان) (born August 1, 1973) is a former

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who participated in the

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

, scoring one goal against Sweden in the Round of 16. Al-Ghesheyan played for Al-Hilal at the time. Fahad Al-Ghesheyan is also known as the first Saudi player to play in Europe when he moved to

AZ Alkmaar Alkmaar Zaanstreek (), better known as AZ Alkmaar or simply AZ (), is a Dutch professional football club from Alkmaar and the Zaan district. The club plays in the Eredivisie, the highest professional football league in the Netherlands, and host ...

in the Netherlands. AZ's manager at that time was

Willem van Hanegem Willem "Wim" van Hanegem (; born 20 February 1944) is a Dutch former football player and coach who played as a midfielder. In a playing career spanning over 20 years, he won several domestic honours in the Netherlands, as well as a European Cu ...

, who previously managed Al-Hilal. He had been impressed by Al-Ghesyan back in Hilal. Al-Ghesheyan was known to be a right winger with good dribbling skills but a lack of professionalism and consistency. Al-Ghesheyan first came into the spotlight when he was part of Saudi Arabia's Asian Youth Cup qualifiers, where he guided the Saudi team to qualification. He was the main star player in the match between Saudi Arabia vs Brazil in that FIFA World Youth Cup where he was too much dominating player and singly took over the momentum of the game. Brazilians were not able to control his pace and ball-control and it was because of him that Saudi Arabia totally dominated over Brazil in the Mid-Field and many counter-attacks. Being on top of his game, he tried to break into the senior team back in 1994 but his path was blocked by a Saudi side then rich in prolific attacking players, like Majid Abdullah, Sami Al Jabir, Fahad Al Mahalel and Saeed Owairan. Being a winger, the coaches rarely gave him a chance to play. He was only introduced in the second half when Saudi were already two goals behind Sweden – even though he managed to get the score to 2–1 while missing another close chance to make it 2–2 before Sweden finally finished the game off at 3–1. Somewhere down the line, he fell out with his club's management. To his astonishment, he was sold to Al Naser, who was Hilal's derby rivals in Riyadh. Hilal fans could not believe that their best player had just left and joined Naser, and he was upset that after he left he only played a few games for Naser, and soon quit the game out of frustration of not being able to play for his boyhood club Hilal. He retired when he was around 30 years old.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghesheyan, Fahad 1973 births Living people Saudi Arabian men's footballers Saudi Arabia men's international footballers Saudi Arabian expatriate men's footballers 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1995 King Fahd Cup players Al Hilal SFC players AZ Alkmaar players Al Nassr FC players Men's association football forwards Saudi Pro League players Eredivisie players Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands Saudi Arabian expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands