When a 17-year-old Mido signed his first European contract with Belgian club Gent, back in 2000, he soon established himself as one of the most exciting prospects in football.
What followed was a topsy-turvy career that saw him hopscotch between 10 different European clubs, often showcasing his deadly striking abilities, but also running into numerous disciplinary problems with his managers, mostly due to his volatile temperament.
The Egyptian, whose real name is Ahmed Hossam, retired at the age of 30, falling short of what many believe could have been a more successful career, given his tremendous potential.
“I had people around me with a lot of experience, but unfortunately I wasn’t listening enough to them,” Mido told The National in an interview at the North Coast in Egypt earlier this summer.
“I was a stubborn boy that had a lot of talent, I think. And I always thought when I was younger that nothing is going to stop me, I’m the best, anywhere I will go I’ll prove that I’m the best. It’s part of my character that helped me a lot, to be honest, but at the same time it stopped me maybe from developing the way I should have developed.”
Now 41, Mido is determined to help the next generation of Egyptian talent develop in the right way to be best prepared for the world of professional football in Europe, and to avoid the mistakes he made during his own career.
The former Ajax, Roma and Tottenham striker launched a company called The Maker, which he describes as a “football incubator”. Currently in its third year, The Maker is a football training programme for boys, scouted from over 14 different governorates in Egypt.
“It includes, of course, the technical part of football, and it’s a programme that is comprehensively Egyptian, starting from scouting the boy, choosing him from the age of eight or nine, to the medical aspect, his nutrition, his mental health and preparation, the language aspect,” Mido said.
“We have 62 boys at the moment, 40 of which are fluent in English right now. They come from humble beginnings, from villages all over Egypt.
“I’m very happy that we’re the first fully-Egyptian training programme and hopefully within years it will be able to produce players that can play professionally in Europe and it can be exported to other countries that can look to The Maker as a successful model for producing professional football players.”
The project, which offers full scholarships to all scouted boys, is a labour of love for Mido, and his family is heavily involved. His wife, Yosra Elleithy, handles the psychological training through her role as people and culture director of The Maker, and his brother, Tamer Wasfy, serves as partner and managing director.
“The idea came to me from a question we frequently ask ourselves: why don’t we have a large number of footballers playing professionally in Europe, despite Egypt having a wealth of human resources, a population of 120 million that includes at least 15 million young boys playing football?” said Mido.
“So I started studying this topic and I found that the main reason isn’t that we don’t have talented footballers, but because there are many factors around football that we have to work on with young boys, so they can be prepared and qualified when the opportunity arises to go play football abroad, they can acclimatise easily to living within a European society, and can blend in as fast as possible.”
The Maker partnered with a club in Maadi, a neighbourhood in Cairo where they have established a base for the project. They have arrangements with the respective schools of the boys to complement their education and give them the lessons they are missing during the days spent at the club.
There is a full-time English teacher living with the boys and they are taught everything from psychological training to tactical awareness. They are also working on establishing a fully-licensed boarding school with help from new investors.
Mido said he is there with the boys at least three days a week and is as hands-on as he can be.
“I’m always there, Yosra is always there. We’re almost living with them,” he added. “We feel the responsibility towards them, the responsibility towards their families. And you get attached to the kids, because they’re angels, they are dreaming, and they have a lot of hope, which puts a lot of positive energy around the place.
“So, actually we go there to heal, to talk to the boys, and to teach them. We believe we are blessed with this project, we’re blessed with the idea itself, having the boys around us.”
Mido never shies away from discussing his own shortcomings as a footballer and believes proper psychological training could have made a big difference when he was a teenager trying to find his way in Europe.
“I wasn’t trained to control my emotions. My brain wasn’t stronger than my emotions. My emotions controlled my actions. I know that if I had the right sports psychologist, or positive psychologist, around me when I was 16, 17, I would have had a totally different path,” he said.
“No regrets, I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve done and I’m proud of the mistakes that I’ve done, because you learn from everything.”
Building good habits within the boys from a young age is paramount, he says.
“There are certain things that you need to be taught between the ages of seven or eight, and 13, 14. This is why I made sure that this is where we start,” Mido said. “Because 70 per cent of the things that you live all your life with, all the habits, you get taught at this age, whether from your parents, family, school, friends, your environment.
“When I was at this age I was a bit spoilt let’s say. Not spoilt, but I thought I was more important than the group and that I can always make the team win. This is maybe when I needed someone to teach me that the group is the most important thing, and that you’re part of the group, you have to listen to your coaches. Basic things that you really think it’s easy and simple, but it’s the main force and main key for success.”
Instilling discipline in the young boys is also a key pillar in The Maker’s training programme, while also developing character, by “giving the boys freedom to express their opinion”.
“That’s our message to everyone involved in the project, that you have to develop the boy’s character, that you have to encourage the boy to voice his opinion, and listen to him, that’s the basis of our curriculum,” Mido said.
Mido presented his project on the Egyptian version of the popular TV show Shark Tank and received significant investment from all businessmen involved.
He has also signed several sponsorship agreements with some of Egypt’s biggest companies and inked deals with global agencies like Swiss company Unique Soccer Co-operations and Spanish agency Mas Que Futbol.
“We have entered this global network so we can give our boys the opportunity to undergo trials with different clubs and so we can share our experiences with each other, and benefit from some of these big clubs that have a lot of history and have a distinct football identity,” said Mido.
A key revenue stream for The Maker is the project’s private academies (for both boys and girls), where people pay to enrol their kids for football training. Mido hopes to have 10 different academies across Cairo launched by the end of 2024 and said the project has already managed to break even this year.
“Our business model is, if I have assets of €30 million of young boys registered in our club and we make this in money out of our project every year, it means it’s going towards the right direction,” said Mido, who added that the main target is to secure contracts for his players at European clubs.
But he also insisted that the player’s best interest will always be at heart, and Mido plans on relying on his own experience to make sure no one goes to a place that isn’t suitable for him.
“We treat each player as a separate project, and we work with them, we become their agents. We take care of the boys and see what’s best for them,” he said.
“We work, I believe, in a professional way, where there is no other place in Egypt that works with the same system. We have meetings with the coaches every morning. We tell them how we want them to approach the sessions. We have at the end of the week reflection meetings – what we could do better? What’s better for the boys? We try to tackle all the different aspects that can develop the boys week in, week out.
“It’s all about involvement. Our philosophy, we don’t look for results, we want only for the boys to develop, we want to have our own identity, we want the boys to be happy as well and enjoy their time.”
Mido has big dreams for the project. In his mind, he envisions a future where his programme can be tailored to other sports so he can help build Egypt’s next Olympic champions. He also hopes to feed Egypt’s national football team with a regular stream of talent.
Asked about his ultimate dream for The Maker, Mido said: “I wish that I’ll be sitting here by the beach in 10 years’ time feeling proud that we got 25 players out of our training programme playing and rising up in Europe.
“If this day comes, it will mean personally for me that I’ve paid my dues back for Egypt and for the community. Getting 25 to 30 boys to be ready to play in Europe, ready mentally, ready with the way they approached life, in everything, on the pitch and off the pitch, I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”
