Feyenoord v AC Milan: Algeria’s Anis Hadj Moussa gives Dutch side hope in Champions League

Rotterdam club have sold star striker and sacked manager but have unearthed a gem in flying winger

Anis Hadj Moussa has enjoyed a flying start to his Feyenoord career. AFP

It is hardly the ideal preparation for their biggest Uefa Champions League match for a quarter of a century.

Not only did Feyenoord sack their manager, Brian Priske, two days before hosting AC Milan in Wednesday’s play-off for the last-16 stage, but less than two weeks earlier they had sold their leading scorer, Santi Gimenez, to the very same Milan.

All of which suggests poor, or at least unfortunate, planning, until you remember that for Feyenoord, as for most clubs in the Dutch Eredivisie, the formula for survival and growth is necessarily to sell the best stars when the price is optimal and a bid comes in from a richer league than theirs.

After that, it’s about trusting your own capacity to unearth the next star-in-the-making.

Market forces meant sooner or later Gimenez, scorer of 45 goals in his two-and-half seasons in Rotterdam, would be subject to big offers.

The same professional ambition meant Arne Slot last summer quitting the manager position at Feyenoord to take over at Liverpool.

Priske, who while guiding Feyenoord into the second phase of the Champions League for the first time since 1999 also left them an unsatisfactory fifth in the domestic Eredivisie, always had a hard act to follow as Slot’s successor.

As for Gimenez, if there is no clear candidate to immediately fill the centre-forward role as effectively as the Mexican did, Feyenoord do have an outstanding attacking prospect who, in a very short time, has shown elite European competition can be a stimulant to his sense of adventure. He is Anis Hadj Moussa and his rise has been breathtakingly rapid.

The Algerian turned 23 on Tuesday. Barely a year ago, he had never played a top division domestic game, let alone stood to attention before kick-off for the Champions League anthem.

But already he’s an asset around whom Feyenoord, mindful of a business model that depends on them scouting talent shrewdly and selling it on wisely, can anticipate a profit even greater than their 450 per cent return on Gimenez, sold to Milan last month for a fee that could reach €32 million.

Rewind to the beginning of 2024 and Hadj Moussa’s accomplished, tricky, change-of-pace wing play was entertaining crowds that could often be counted in the hundreds not the thousands.

His domain was the second tier of Belgian professional football, his club Patro Eisden, to where a zigzag career had taken him from Olympic Charleroi, of Belgium’s third division, after an apprenticeship at Lens in France.

From there he has raced upwards to Wednesday’s confrontation with the seven-time European club champions and, fitness permitting, into a direct head-to-head with Theo Hernandez, Milan’s adventurous, combative left-back.

Hadj Moussa will enter that duel as a full Algeria international, having been called up for his country for the first time last March, the Desert Foxes’s manager Vladimir Petkovic having noted the impression he very quickly made after going on loan from Eisden to Vitesse in the Netherlands at the end of last January.

Eisden’s intention was to give him exposure at a higher level. Within a matter of weeks, a bid from Feyenoord was accepted that would break Eisden’s transfer record.

At €3.5m, it looks a bargain and he has more than paid off the investment already in Uefa prize money.

Hadj Moussa’s contributions in the Champions League the vital difference between Feyenoord’s staying in contention for a last-16 place and dropping out at the league phase, which they would have done without the three points he directly earned.

He set up a goal and scored, with a fabulous curling drive, in the 4-2 victory over Sparta Prague; he launched a memorable comeback against Manchester City, who had led Feyenoord 3-0 with 16 minutes remaining when the alert Hadj Moussa pounced on a defensive error, and cooly rounded City goalkeeper Ederson to set the momentum for a stunning rally back to 3-3.

There was a fabulous individual goal against Salzburg, too, a delicate scoop of the ball into the air to take it away from his marker followed by a precise finish.

That match ended in defeat, part of the irregular set of results Priske’s Feyenoord have peppered their European campaign with.

They are a team capable of beating Bayern Munich 3-0 or scoring three times in a quarter of an hour against City. But they have also flopped against Salzburg and lost 6-1 to Lille.

Hadj Moussa, though, has been a revelation. Uefa made him Man of the Match at the Etihad stadium against City, an evening that felt especially resonant in his coming-of-age journey.

His idol, Riyad Mahrez, used to grace the same arena in City colours, and, watching on television from afar, the young Hadj Moussa would study his compatriot closely.

“I always had Mahrez as a role model,” Hadj Moussa told reporters when he made his debut for Algeria. “He was what I wanted to be, as a left-footed player operating from the right. I would especially look at the technical tricks he has.”

There are parallels in the two players’ relatively late ascent to elite level.

Mahrez, ten years senior to Hadj Moussa and now at Al Alhi in Saudi Arabia, played his first top-division football only at the age of 23, having started at Ligue 2 Le Havre in France and joined Leicester City in England’s second tier before he helping them to promotion – and later a historic English title – to the Premier League.

There are hints of Mahrez in how Hadj Moussa glides past defenders in possession, too, in his elegant shuffles and sways while dribbling.

He can strike a fine dead ball and if his preference for his left foot is never disguised, his weaker foot delivers a sharp cross if he passes a defender on the outside.

His slick goal to put Feyenoord in command of Sunday’s meeting with Sparta Rotterdam was finished with a neat, angled right-footed shot.

That was Feyenoord’s second goal of a 3-0 derby win. Not enough, as it turned out, to save coach Priske’s job. He was sacked the next day, leaving interim coach Pascal Bosschaart little time to patch together a plan to take on Milan.