Thabet El-Batal (16 September 1953 – 14 February 2005) was an Egyptian international

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting ...

. He played club football in his homeland (El Hawamdia). Then he went to Al Ahly between 1972 and 1991. He is considered to be one the greatest goalkeepers in

africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. His name "El-Batal" is the name of his family

Career

The career of Thabet El-Batal evolved from the team in his neighborhood, Al Hawmdia. He then made the acquaintance of Hawamdeh ( Abdo El-Bakal) who convinced him at age 19 to sign with

Al Ahly AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...

in 1972. He joined the club in Cairo during the 1972/1973 season and played some friendly matches with a match against

Ittihad The Ittihad Party ( az, İttihad firqəsi) was a radical Islamist party in the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1917–1920. It was formed in September 1917 in opposition to the secular Musavat Party and proposed political unity of all the Musl ...

, where he stopped a penalty kick, to let Al Ahly win the match 1–0. El-Batal became the Al Ahly guard, formally beginning with the 1974/1975 season and succeeded in winning his championship year for the first time after successive victories and titles, both continental and Egyptian. He was one of the major players in the emergence of the club in Africa. He spent a total of 17 seasons at the club and retired at the end of the 1990/1991 season, after the match against Aswan in the Egypt Cup final, where they won 1–0. Internationally, he made his first appearance as a team to Egypt in 1974 and spent 16 years. He won the African Nations Cup in 1986 and participated in the Olympic Games. He was a member of the Egypt squad which participated in the

1990 FIFA World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

.1990 FIFA World Cup: Egypt Squad

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

. Retrieved 12 February 2010. In 2004, he then became the technical director of

. He succeeded by his office in achieving many of the championships, 5 of them in successive league championships, the Egypt Cup once and twice the championship of the Arab Clubs Champions and Super Cup twice. Thabet El-Batal died in February 2005, after a long battle with cancer.

Honours

Club

;Al Ahly *

Egyptian Premier League The Egyptian Premier League ( ar, الدوري المصري الممتاز), also known as WE Egyptian Premier League (WE EPL) after the addition of title sponsor WE, is a professional association football league in Egypt and the top level of t ...

: 1974–75, 1975–76, 1976–77, 1978–79, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1981–82, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1988-1989 * Egypt Cup: 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1991 *

African Cup of Champions Clubs The CAF Champions League, known for sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League and formerly the African Cup of Champions Clubs, is an annual football club competition organized by the Confederation of African Football and cont ...

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C ...

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

African Cup Winners' Cup The African Cup Winners' Cup was a football competition that started in 1975 and merged with the CAF Cup in 2004 to form the CAF Confederation Cup. It was a competition between the winning clubs of domestic cups in CAF-affiliated nations and wa ...

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal en ...

Afro-Asian Cup The Afro-Asian Club Championship, sometimes referred to as the Afro-Asian Cup, was a football competition endorsed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Asian Football Confederation (AFC), contested between the winners of the Africa ...

: 1988

International

;Egypt *

African Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internat ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Batal, Thabet 1953 births 2005 deaths 1990 FIFA World Cup players 1974 African Cup of Nations players 1984 African Cup of Nations players 1986 African Cup of Nations players 1990 African Cup of Nations players Egyptian men's footballers Al Ahly SC players Egypt men's international footballers Egyptian Premier League players Competitors at the 1979 Mediterranean Games Africa Cup of Nations-winning players Men's association football goalkeepers Footballers from Cairo Deaths from cancer in Egypt Mediterranean Games competitors for Egypt