Aston Villa play-off goalscorer Anwar El Ghazi has revealed how he made an emotional trip to visit stricken former Ajax team-mate Abdelhak Nouri after his Wembley heroics.
El Ghazi headed straight back to Holland after celebrating Villa’s return to the Premier League after their 2-1 victory over Derby at Wembley last month.
And the first thing the 24-year-old Dutch international did was call on Nouri, the 22-year-old midfielder who is still being treated at the Amsterdam University Hospital almost two years after suffering a cardiac arrest during a game.
El Ghazi, who paid tribute to Nouri by revealing a shirt emblazoned with his friend’s name and number on the Wembley pitch, said: “I gave my Villa shirt from the final to charity.
(Image: Mike Hewitt)
“But the Nouri shirt, I will always keep. I think about my friend all the time – and I pray for him five times every single day.
“I visit him when I go back to Holland and it is very emotional every single time.
“I always speak to him. I somehow hope that he can hear my words.
“I have a good relationship with his family, especially his brothers, and it is still hard to believe what happened to my friend on that pitch.
“We all remember a video clip where he said that he wants to win the Champions League with Ajax.
“Every time Ajax got closer to the final last season, beating all these big teams, I got more and more emotional.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
“I also got upset when his dad and his brothers were part of the celebrations when Ajax became champions of Holland on the last day of this season.”
Nouri has permanent brain damage after suffering a cardiac arrhythmia during a pre-season friendly against Werder Bremen in Austria.
He spent a year in a coma and is still unable to recognise members of his family.
Like Nouri, El Ghazi is of Moroccan descent – but they were both born and raised in Amsterdam.
And both had a burning ambition to play for Ajax. El Ghazi is still bitter about the way he was discarded by former Ajax coach Peter Bosz after becoming a regular in the team as a teenager.
He moved to French club Lille for £7million in January 2017 before joining Villa on a season-long loan last summer.
The Midlands club immediately triggered an option to buy the winger permanently for £14m after booking their return to the top flight.
(Image: Action Images via Reuters)
El Ghazi said: “Scoring at Wembley and bringing Premier League football back to the city of Birmingham is the most wonderful thing in my career. When I was watching Ajax in the Champions League last season, when they were beating teams like Real Madrid and Juventus , I was thinking: ‘I want to be on the pitch with the guys I left behind’.
“I felt that I belonged there, but my last period at the club was painful and when Bosz put me on the bench after playing 99 first-team matches, we clashed. But I’m happy to now be at Villa because English football suits me and the fans are so fanatic.
“I am a bit wary of some crazy people, like the fan who attacked my team-mate Jack Grealish in the derby against Birmingham.
“The atmosphere in the stadium was more fanatic than the famous derby between Ajax and Feyenoord.”
