Apr 2001
In this issue:
Features
Rabah Madjer
NOX Speaks to the one Arab who made his mark in the Champions League.
Issue: May, 2008
Rabah Madjer is considered not only one of the best Arab football players of all time, but perhaps the best ever. Long before Mustafa Hadji, Noureddine Naybet and Mohamed Zidan made their presence felt in Europe, Madjer was playing for Porto and, in 1987, winning the biggest trophy on the continent against Bayern Munich as well as the Intercontinental Cup over Uruguay’s Penarol the following autumn. The car he won as man-of-the-match for his two goals in the latter was immediately sold to divide the cash amongst his team-mates.
Success also came at international level. Madjer’s goals helped Algeria become the first African team to qualify for back-to-back World Cups, in 1982 and 1986, and then secure its first and only African Cup of Nations in 1990. He remains the country’s leading international goalscorer.
NOX: Thanks for taking the time to speak to us. What’s on your schedule these days?
Rabah Madjer: I am currently preparing for Euro 2008 which will be broadcast exclusively on al-Jazeera Sports. Then it’s a summer break!
NOX: You played in the old European Cup format. Do you like the current Champions League?
RM: The system is better now because it gives the teams a better opportunity to prove that they are consistently playing at a high level. Back in the day, teams played four ties and won the cup.
NOX: But don’t you think the current system takes away the element of surprise, where a small team can win the title?
RM: The surprise is always going to be there in football, because football does not depend on science as much as on players’ will and effort. Take for example a team like Bayer Leverkusen, which lost 4-1 at home against Zenit St Petersberg this year.
NOX: What about your personal experience in the Champions Cup, especially since you are the only Arab who ever played in a final?
RM: It was a great honour to win the title in 1987 with FC Porto, which was one of the biggest teams in Europe then. We beat other big teams like Dynamo Kiev and of course Bayern Munich, a team with significant history in European football. Thank God we won, and I’m really grateful that I scored a goal and sent over the cross to my Brazilian team-mate Juary to score the winner.
NOX: So, tell us more about that famous back-heel…!
RM: Honestly, I have scored two goals with my heel in my career. Two months after the final, I scored a hat-trick in a game in the Portuguese league where we won 7-1. One of the goals was also with my heel, and I thought it was a great goal! I guess it did not get the attention of the first one because the whole world was watching…
NOX: Did the Germany pave your way to become the first Arabs to star in Europe?
RM: When you score against Germany on the biggest football stage, people are going to ask who that player is. Following the World Cup a lot of big teams showed interest, but I ended up signing with RC Paris and two years later I moved to Porto.
NOX: How do you see the current status of Arab football and is there any chance any Arabs are going to appear in a Champions League final soon?
RM: Honestly, I have not been following the Arab teams that much as I have been focusing on international events – especially that al-Jazeera is going to have the exclusive rights for the Champions League from 2009. But I hope that Arab football keeps on improving; we have a lot of special players who can represent us on the international level and serve as our ambassadors to the world. I was rooting for the Egyptian team in the latest African Cup and I hope players from Egypt, the Gulf and the whole Arab world can join European teams and develop into world-class players.
For the full version of this article, see NOX 22
