Nabil El Zhar

Nabil El Zhar is a midfielder who plays for Levante UD and the national team of Morocco.

Nabil’s professional career started at Liverpool. At first he performed for their reserve team and made an official debut on October 3, 2006 against Newcastle. The first start for the main squad happened one year later. On October 31, 2007 he took the field in the Carling Cup competition against Cardiff. However his career at Anfield wasn’t as glorious as one might have expected. After spending 5 seasons for the ‘Reds’ he made only 21 appearances with 2 goals.

That was obviously below El Zhar’s ambition and he tried to find a place where he would get more playing time. Thus he was loaned by the Greek PAOK. After a rather good season in the Greek championship (20 appearances, 4 goals) he moved to Levante on a permanent deal having been released from his contract at Liverpool. The Moroccan signed a two-year deal with the Spanish side and spent his first season in La Liga on a decent level making 22 appearances.

As for his career in the national team Nabil had a difficult choice as he had a right to represent either France or Morocco on the international level. He chose the Arabic land as this is the country of his parents’ origin. However Nabil has an experience of playing for the youth teams of France too. As a part of Moroccan youth team Nabil participated in the FIFA World Youth Championship 2005 when his team reached the semi-finals where they lost to their peers from Nigeria 0-3. The Moroccans also lost the bronze medals of that championship to Brazil.

Nabil made his debut for the senior national squad of Morocco on March 26, 2008 against Belgium in Brussels. That game was victorious for his team as the Belgians were smashed 4-1 and Nabil himself managed to score despite being only a 85th minute substitute.