Ali Reda Fakih (; born 12 April 1967) is a Lebanese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

coach and former player who is the goalkeeper coach of club Shabab Sahel. As a player, Fakih played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), 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 i ...

. During the 1996–97 season, Fakih set a world record for most consecutive minutes without conceding a goal, at 1,511 minutes. At international level, Fakih represented

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

at the

2000 AFC Asian Cup The 2000 AFC Asian Cup was the 12th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The finals were held in Lebanon between 12 and 29 October 2000. Japan def ...

Club career

Coming through the youth system, Fakih started his senior club career with

Racing Beirut Racing Club (), known as Racing Beirut or simply Racing, is a football club based in Achrafieh, a district in Beirut, Lebanon, that competes in the . They play their home matches at the Fouad Chehab Stadium and are primarily supported by the ...

. In 1989 Fakih left Racing to join Shabab Sahel, where he played two seasons. He played for Ansar between 1992 and 1999, winning seven

Lebanese Premier League The Lebanese First Division (), commonly known as the Lebanese Premier League (), is the top division of the Lebanese football league system. Established in 1934 and organized by the Lebanese Football Association (LFA), the Lebanese Premier Leagu ...

titles and five Lebanese FA Cups. Fakih is the

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

holder for most consecutive minutes without conceding a goal. He didn't concede a goal for 1,511 minutes, while keeping 16 clean sheets in the 1996–97 season, beating the record previously set by

Chris Woods Christopher Charles Eric Woods (born 14 November 1959) is an English football coach and former professional footballer, who is goalkeeping coach for the Scotland national team. As a player, he was a goalkeeper (association football), goalke ...

Rangers A ranger is typically someone in a law enforcement or military/paramilitary role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called "ranging" or "scouting". The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with prot ...

. Fakih joined

Sagesse ''Sagesse'' () is a volume of French poetry by Paul Verlaine. First published in 1881 (see 1880), it was important in the symbolist and modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emph ...

in 1999 for two years, before returning to Shabab Sahel, where he retired after playing for five seasons.

International career

Fakih played for the Lebanon national under-23 team between 1990 and 1992. He was first called up to the senior national team in 1992, remaining a regular until 2002. He was Lebanon's first-choice goalkeeper at the

Managerial career

After his retirement, Fakih became a goalkeeper coach, working at Ansar and Shabab Sahel. In 2020, Fakih is the first team manager of Third Division side

Al Raya ''Al Raya'' () is an Arabic-language daily newspaper published in Doha, Qatar. It is the semi-official newspaper of the country and is one of the five leading Qatari dailies. As for Arabic dailies published in the country ''Al Raya'' is among th ...

. In 2020 he was re-appointed goalkeeper coach of Shabab Sahel.

Honours

Individual * Lebanese Premier League Best Save: 1996–97 *

Lebanese Premier League Team of the Season The Al-Manar Football Festival () was an event organised by the Al-Manar television station between the 1996–97 and 2018–19 seasons in order to award players, managers, referees and teams who were considered to have performed the best over ...

: 1996–97, 1997–98, 2000–01, 2001–02

References

External links