Yousesef El-Arabi could easily have chosen other paths busy with indifferent glances. But he’s a fighter whose life has been full of challenges encountered and surpassed, and it wasn’t by chance he chose the path-less course, with all sorts of unusual but charming stops along the way. And, truth be told, there were a lot of them. Until, aged 32, he signed his first contract with Olympiacos and found himself catapulted into the realms of football glory. One wonders if the narrow streets of Herouville, a little town in north-western France where he first kicked a ball around with his brother, still guide his steps? It would seem so, as he’s the most illustrious graduate of the jackets-for-goalposts football academy, and those streets don’t want him to ever forget them entirely.
Passes over the concrete and shots straight at goal. That was the first lesson El-Arabi learned, converting crosses from his brother. From an early age, it was obvious he had a natural talent, a gift for putting the ball in the back of the net. There were numerous Moroccans in Herouville, so he never felt alone, and he was quickly playing football in nearby Caen.
«School in the morning, football in the afternoon,» was his father’s advice—and isn’t that what every parent wants from their kids? But El-Arabi wasn’t like the other kids. «I’m going to reach the top,» he’d repeat like a mantra as his teachers insisted on molding their charges’ characters.
From Caen to Piraeus via Qatar
El Arabi found a place in the Caen squad and was given his first jersey: Number 33. But no name on his back. «I was young and no one had heard of me,» he says, with a hint of chagrin, perhaps, but those are memories that will never leave him. Later, he would move to Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, where he wore “21”. It was his decision to move there, «because they’re the biggest club in the country». But then an offer arrived from Grenada, who broke the «piggy bank» and paid five million euros for him, an unprecedented sum for the club at the time.
He was already making a name for himself, in the Number 15 jersey or the Number 9, and Grenada suited him with its six mosques, where the striker would often go to pray. «Health is God-sent,» is another of his favorite maxims. His career then took him to Qatar, for three years at Al-Duhail, at which point some people wrote him off as forgotten. They thought he’d given up, but the critics didn’t include the Olympiacos management, whose eyes, scanning the horizon for possible signings, had settled on El-Arabi.
The culmination of a momentous career in Piraeus. El-Arabi holding the Europa Conference League trophy.
Unstoppable
Introductions are unnecessary when a player keeps scoring goals. El-Arabi, an Aquarius (born in February 1987), first set foot in Greece in July 2019, at the age of 32. A land where the general public had no idea who he was. He didn’t get a place in the starting line-up right away. Which is reasonable. However, deep inside, he knew what was coming. One player’s misfortune is another’s invitation to enter the pearly gates of football heaven. That’s a «law» of football. Olympiacos flirted with the idea of signing Swedish international Marcus Berg but never tied the knot, then Miguel Ángel Guerrero was injured during their rematch against Krasnodar in Russia, and El-Arabi was off the bench and on the pitch. It was the two goals he went on to score that showed the fans who he really was. So a 2-1 win for Olympiacos (6-1 on aggregate), and the Greece’s Legend Club qualified for the Champions League groups. But El-Arabi’s career in the red-and-white stripes had only just begun.
Sometimes, a simple ‘pleased to meet you’ is enough to get a sense of a true striker’s devastating power. To feel El-Arabi’s touch, as delicate as a needle embroidering the fabric of the game. Because this French-Moroccan striker creates art-works on the pitch.
«You have to play, to fight and stay hungry,» is something he’s never tired of sharing during his action-packed career. Who could deny that he has become one of the top Olympiacos strikers of all time? After all, he’s won the «Golden Boot» twice in the Super League with 20 goals in the ’19-’20 and 22 in the ‘20-’21 seasons. He was named the top foreign player in both those seasons, too, and he currently ranks second among the top scorers in European competitions, with 20 goals in 57 appearances. Who’s in first place? Ayoub El Kaabi, of course, with his barnstorming run that led to last season’s Europa Conference League title. But El-Arabi is something else—he’s even surpassed Giovanni’s four «hat-tricks», having scored five already in far fewer appearances.
His unique style of sending the ball into the net made for fans’ hearts to beat faster in the pursuit of their passion
The striker who left his mark
Youssef El Arabi has already earned his place in our collective memory as the Olympiacos center-forward. More skillful than El-Kaabi, a powerful striker of the ball with stats to prove it (317 goals in 643 matches), he has more than kept a promise he made when he set out on his footballing career all those years ago. As El-Arabi once said: «I’ll show the world how crazy I am about football, and make my sacrifices pay off.» They dubbed him the ‘editor’, because he created images that have embedded themselves in our memory banks. Because the ‘gun-slinger’, to use a nickname he earned with his unique celebrations, really has given the Olympiacos fans (though not them alone) a lot to remember.
«May we enjoy beautiful moments together,» he said as he signed his contract in red ink. And if that counts as a commitment, he certainly kept it. With 94 goals all told. And he certainly kept the fans enchanted, too. During lock-down, with the coronavirus raging still, Youssef was the best company they could have hoped for as he warmed up the cold winter nights with his goals. It was like those evenings never wanted to end, but to keep the fans enthralled and on the edge of their seats till the very last.
Those evenings when El-Arabi blasted holes in the net in his signature style were the nights when the fans’ heartbeats went into the red. His goal against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in February 2020—the goal which won Olympiacos a place in the round of «16» of the Europa League—was fine enough to silence the Gunners for a while.
The hard-fought goals against Tottenham and Eindhoven
The goal—a thing of beauty! – he scored off Mathieu Valbuena’s pass to earn Olympiacos their 1-0 win over Panathinaikos in an empty pandemic-era Karaiskakis Stadium comes to mind, as well as the goals he scored against AEK Athens, whose fans will never, ever forget him.
And his contributions to the procession to triumph in the Europa Conference League should not be underestimated. Because, when the going got tough, Olympiacos needed El-Arabi to get going. And, aged 37, he did, providing the drive for the comeback against Maccabi Tel Aviv. His goals were «stabs in the heart» for the opposition and sporting «nectar» for lovers of fine football everywhere.
El-Arabi’s career with the Reds was nothing short of captivating. He blazed new trails with his teammates and the Olympiacos fans, and his goals will remain etched in history like imprints on the mind. They’ll stay with you forever, no matter how many years pass and how many wrinkles your forehead acquires. So, while time will pass, Youssef El-Arabi will remain a part of Olympiacos’ history For, with his boundless passion and golden boots, he lit up a gloomy sky with the silver moon of hope and victory.
