Moving fate
He was almost blind: ex-entrepreneurial professional ended career
29.01.2025 – 4:27 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
For Omar Elabdellaoui it is over. The former professional of Eintracht Braunschweig ends his career. This was accompanied by a severe stroke of fate.
With him, Eintracht Braunschweig once rose to the Bundesliga. He tirelessly placed the right outer track and was one of the absolute top performers at Eintracht – even in the highest German division. Now Omar Elabdellaoui has ended his active professional career.
He confirmed this on Monday on platform X in a detailed article. “For me, the time has come to withdraw from this wonderful game – a game that gave me more than I could ever have dreamed,” he writes in it and thanks his companions for an “incredible journey”.
And this trip took a tragic turn for the Norwegian around four years ago. When he turned the Eintracht in the summer of 2014 after 44 competitive games in the blue-yellow jersey, he initially hired Piraeus at the Greek top club Olympiakos, even played there in the Champions League.
In the summer of 2020, he finally landed in Turkey near Galatasaray via a rental station at Hull City in England. Once there, he was persecuted by the bad luck. First a corona infection slowed him down. Shortly afterwards the stroke of fate followed. On New Year’s Eve, an exploding fireworks seriously injured him.
Elabdellaoui had to go to the hospital with burns. In particular, the injuries to the right eye were so serious that the football career continued to continue. “Everything was dark – I didn’t know if it was day or night,” he said in February 2022 in an interview with the “Guardian”.
It was unclear whether Elabdellaoui would ever be able to see again. But he fought. With the support of family members, numerous doctors and through operations on the eyes, his eyesight gradually returned. “It was like a miracle,” he says of the first progress through which he could perceive things around him again.
After around a year of suffering, he was able to return to the family’s house permanently. When he finally stood on the pitch – equipped with special glasses and contact lenses – it became emotional. “All players cried and hugged,” his doctor described the “Guardian”.
At “Gala” he played until the summer of 2022 before it continued in his home country near Bodø/Glimt. There he completed 15 games. On November 3, 2024, he made his last game against Moldde FK when he dug for 45 minutes.
The following week he was again in the squad against Fredrikstad FK, but was not used. Now for Omar Elabdellaoui at the age of 33 and as a 49-time Norwegian international is finally over in professional football. Among other things, he has 22 Champions League, eight Premier League and 29 Bundesliga games in his luggage.
In his farewell video on X, he reviews his career. To see: jerseys hanging on the wall of his ex-clubs-the stations of a moving career.