Wednesday 05 / February / 2025
Muscat: Ahmed Al Busaidi, a young player from the Muscat Football Academy (MFA), is set to travel to Italy to train with Italian club Juventus at their week-long summer camp.
Ahmed, who captains MFA’s under-13 squad under the tutelage of head coach Chuck Martini, participated in the 2018 Mundialito Junior World Cup held in Catalonia, Spain, last March, where
he impressed pundits during a match against Juventus’ developmental side.
MFA was one of 94 teams involved in the tournament, which featured some of the best youth teams in the world, including Borussia Dortmund, FC Barcelona, FC Porto, Sporting Lisbon, Inter Milan, and Liverpool, to name a few.
“Ahmed’s been with us now for the last two-and-a-half years, and he did fantastically well at the Mundialito, where he captained the team and had a fantastic game against Juventus,” said Martini. “It is only fitting for him to have this opportunity to train for a week in Palermo, where the training camp will take place.”
“There will be players from all backgrounds over there, obviously trying to impress the Juventus coaches,” added the former Moroccan international goalkeeper.
“It is an experience that he will enjoy and I am sure he will do well. I am sure he will learn a lot there and come back a better player. I am hoping that should any developments happen, he stays on with Juve, but it is more of an experience on how things are done, a residential experience as he will be living there in the camp.”
“I wish him all the best as he is a player who is very close to me,” he said. “I am also quite close to his parents. I noticed him three years ago in our development centre, and since then, he has progressed by leaps and bounds.”
Ahmed’s younger brother Hisham also plays for MFA, and is as passionate for football as he is about karate.
The 10-year-old recently won at the World Karate Championships in Scotland.
“His brother Hisham also plays with us, but he is the karate expert, and he’s just won the world championship in karate, so they seem to come from a sporting family,” said former Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper, Martini. “Let’s hope Ahmed does the same in football.”
“The great news here is Ahmed going to play for Juventus, and I hope more materialises for him,” he added.
More good news soon
Aside from Ahmed, four other MFA players are expected to move to Italy soon, and for a longer period of time. This comes in the wake of the attendance by several developmental squad players at a technical camp with Italian side Hellas Verona earlier this year.
“There are also some developments on the players who have gone to Italy,” said Martini. “Two players from our team, Soheib Al Kharusi and Mohamed Al Naamani, will be signing this year with Lombardia Uno AC Milan Technical Centre, which is an academy assigned by AC Milan for the development of their players who are not quite at the level of AC Milan, but are affiliated with them for their improvement.”
“There is some promising news in this area, because we have two Omani boys going out to Italy, signing for the AC Milan academy for a year, as well as two of our Latino boys, Diego Batista and Alejandro Olaya, who will sign with a Serie C team in Italy for a year,” he added.
