The United Arab Emirates go into the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023™ aiming to build on their back-to-back semi-final finishes. And just as was the case in 2015 and 2019, Ali Mabkhout will carry the hopes of his nation.
Not many players in Asian football have as many records to their name across club and country, domestic and continental football as 33-year-old Mabkhout, and he travels to Qatar hopeful of breaking one of the most important records of them all.

Only two players in the history of the AFC Asian Cup have scored more goals than Mabkhout’s nine goals. The Emirati is one goal short of Korea Republic’s Lee Dong-gook and five behind the competition’s all-time top scorer Ali Daei, both numbers he will be eager to catch up with, starting with Group C matches against IR Iran, Palestine and Hong Kong.

Factfile
Name: Ali Mabkhout
Age: 33
Position: Forward
Caps: 113
Goals: 84
Club: Al Jazira (UAE)

Mabkhout started his AFC Asian Cup scoring journey in Australia 2015 with a brace against Qatar, before entering the record books with the fastest goal in the competition’s history after just 14 seconds against Bahrain, then adding two more in the knockout stage against Japan and Iraq to finish the tournament on five.

At home in 2019, the UAE’s number seven picked-up where he left-off, scoring against India and Thailand in the group stage, then against Kyrgyz Republic and Australia in the Round of 16 and quarter-finals respectively to reach four for the tournament and nine in total.

A one-club man who has spent his whole career at his hometown club Al Jazira, Mabkhout is the club’s all-time top scorer, the UAE Pro League’s all-time top scorer and the UAE national team’s all-time top scorer.

Among active male footballers anywhere in the world, only Cristiano Ronaldo (128), Lionel Messi (106) and Sunil Chhetri (93) have more goals for their national teams than Mabkhout’s 84, a tally that saw him beat previous UAE record holder Adnan Al Talyani by 32 goals so far, despite playing 48 matches less than the former striker.

Mabkhout’s list of individual honours have him as the UAE Pro League top scorer twice, the only local player to achieve that award, the AFC Asian Cup top scorer in 2015 and the Gulf Cup top scorer twice. He was also the highest scorer in the Asian Qualifiers for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with 14 goals.

“Mabkhout is an incredible player,” said his former coach at Al Jazira Frank de Boer, celebrating the striker reaching 300 goals in all competitions for the club back in October.

“He is a textbook striker who could play in European football. He is not just about scoring goals, but the quality of his movement also helps the team create chances, we are lucky to have him.”