French club Nice announced the transfer of the Egyptian national team and Al-Ahly football club defender, Mohamed Abdel Moneim (25 years old), to its ranks, after difficult negotiations that almost led to the deal failing, after the player refused to extend his contract with Al-Ahly, which ends in the summer of 2025, and insisted on undergoing a professional experience in Europe, to become the owner of the second Egyptian professional experience currently in the French League.
Nice club resorted to suspense in introducing the player to the fans, as it published a tweet on Thursday on its official social media platforms in which it wrote: “He is coming,” referring to Mohamed Abdel Moneim, the new central defender. Nice club sporting director Florian Maurice confirmed in statements to the club’s official website that the contacts to include Mohamed Abdel Moneim continued throughout the summer, indicating that the club began negotiations since the end of the Egyptian league to conclude the deal and conclude a strong deal with an experienced player and a distinguished defender.
Mohamed Abdel Moneim (25 years old) is considered the best Egyptian defender in the last four years, specifically since the Portuguese coach of the Egyptian national team at the time “2021-2022” Carlos Queiroz discovered him and included him in the national team. He is a player on loan from the Al-Ahly youth team to Modern Sport Club, and he succeeded in obtaining a seat in the Egyptian national team’s starting lineup from 2021 until now, and participated in two African Cup of Nations tournaments, and shone in the Cameroon 2021 version.
After returning to the latter and ending his loan at Modern Sport at the beginning of 2022, the Al-Ahly defender contributed to achieving all the championships, and was crowned the local league champion twice, as well as winning the African Champions League twice in 2023 and 2024, and was crowned the Egypt Cup and the Egyptian Super Cup champion, in addition to the bronze medal of the Club World Cup in 2023. Mohamed Abdel Moneim is good at scoring from the air, and scored one of Al-Ahly’s most important goals in the last five years, which is the equalizer against Wydad Casablanca in the second leg of the 2023 African Champions League final, which contributed to Al-Ahly winning the continental title.
Al-Ahly defender has become the latest Egyptian face in French football stadiums, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Nantes’ top scorer and the owner of the best Egyptian experience in France, Mostafa Mohamed, on loan from Galatasaray in Turkey in 2022, then bought him permanently to play for two seasons, and the last season 2023-2024 witnessed Mostafa Mohamed’s success in scoring eight goals, and making two goals, and he was the most contributor to goals, and he was chosen as the best player in Nantes in the same season, and competed for a period for the title of top scorer in the French League in its first rounds, and his price reached more than 15 million euros. The French stadiums, and playing in “Ligue 1” are among the most difficult Egyptian professional experiences ever in the old continent, and witnessed quick and early ends to experiences that were not destined for success in the third millennium.
The year 2002 witnessed the first Egyptian appearance in France during the third millennium, when Al Mokawloon Al Arab striker Mazhar Abdel Rahman moved to Monaco, but he sat on the bench a lot, participating in only five matches, and was loaned to another club, Châteauroux, where he played for a short period, and returned to Monaco to sit on the bench with them until his departure. One of the most famous Egyptian experiences that was accompanied by a great uproar was the experience of Ahmed Hossam Mido, the striker of Olympique de Marseille, between 2003 and 2004 in a historic deal at the time, coming from Ajax, Netherlands, for 13 million euros. Mido played 34 matches with Marseille, scoring only nine goals and making seven assists, and was the second striker after the Ivorian Didier Drogba, whose talent exploded in the 2003-2004 season at the expense of Mido.
Another professional experience was the Strasbourg experience in 2005, which included the famous Ismaili midfielder Hosni Abd Rabou for 800 thousand euros, and the left back of Al-Ahly Ahmed Abu Muslim for 250 thousand euros, but Hosni Abd Rabou did not last long and asked to leave, and entered into a crisis of signing for Al-Ahly and Ismaily after a year, before officially returning to Ismaily. The experience of Ahmed Abu Muslim, who played in Strasbourg, was not successful, and he was also loaned to Ajaccio in another unsuccessful experience, which did not contribute to Abu Muslim’s presence in the Egyptian national team, until he returned again to the local league with Ismaily Club. There were other unsuccessful Egyptian experiences, such as the experience of Ahmed Samir Farag, who played at the age of nineteen at Sochaux Club in 2005 when he left Al-Ahly, but he did not fit into his European career, and did not participate much in Sochaux, so he quickly returned to the Egyptian stadiums, and joined the ranks of Ismaily.
The French stadiums witnessed the experience of the current Pyramids striker, Doudou El-Gabbas, with the Avignon club in 2014, in an experience that lasted only one year, and the current Pyramids full-back, Karim Hafez, also played for the Lens club between 2016 and 2018, and the former Arab Contractors playmaker, Abdullah Yassin, played for the Paris Saint-Germain reserve team for years. The Egyptian stadiums witnessed the recent inclusion of two French players, namely Anthony Modeste, who played for Al-Ahly this season in a failed experience that ended quickly, as well as the experience of the famous French football star, Florent Malouda, who played professionally with Wadi Degla, and shone with them despite his advanced age in 2016.
