Abdelkarim Hassan

Abdelkarim Hassan (عبد الكريم حسن; born 28 August 1993) is a Qatari professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Persian Gulf Pro League club Persepolis and the Qatar national team.

Abdelkarim won the Asian Footballer of the Year award in 2018.

Club career
Abdelkarim Hassan graduated from Aspire Academy in 2011.

He was the youngest player to appear in the 2011 AFC Champions League at 17 years old, coming off the bench against Esteghlal. His team subsequently emerged champions of the Champions League that year. He was awarded Young Player of the Year in the 2012–13 Qatar Stars League. It was announced in June 2017 that Al Sadd had loaned him to Belgian First Division A side Eupen.

Abdelkarim played in the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup, in which he scored in a 3–1 win over Hienghène Sport. He later scored in the second round 3–2 loss against C.F. Monterrey. Al-Sadd eventually finished in the 5th place.

On 21 December 2022, the management of Al Sadd announced that Abdelkarim Hassan has been excluded from the football first team permanently. This comes due to the player’s outlook not matching the goals and aspirations of the team for the upcoming period. On 25 January 2023, Abdelkarim Hassan joined for Kuwaiti Premier League club Al-Jahra.

Persepolis
On 22 January 2024, Hassan joined Persian Gulf Pro League side Persepolis on a 18-month deal, making him first Qatari footballer to play professionally in Iran.

Youth teams
Abdelkarim scored a goal against UAE U20 in the 10th International Friendship Youth Tournament.

In a friendly match against the Malaysia U-23 side on 17 June 2012, Abdelkarim sparked a mass melee between the two sides after a two-footed lunge on Mohd Azrif in the 43rd minute. He was duly shown a red card for his challenge. Afterwards, a Malaysian player, Nazmi Faiz, ran half the length of the pitch to confront him, and punched him. Being 5 inches shorter than Abdelkarim, Nazmi's punch turned into nothing more than a push on his chest. Faiz was promptly shown a red card. Qatar went on to lose the match 2–0.

He scored a goal in Qatar's opening game against Maldives in the qualifying stage for the 2014 AFC U-22 Asian Cup.

Senior team
Abdelkarim made his debut for the senior national team on 18 November 2010 against Haiti.

He was the youngest player to appear in the preliminary squad list for the 2011 Asian Cup at the age of 17 years and 123 days old. He scored Qatar's only goal against Malaysia in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers to ensure Qatar a berth in the Asian Cup. He also scored a goal in Qatar's 4–1 victory against Yemen in the qualifiers.

Though his team lost all their group stage games in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, he was extolled as one of the stars of the tournament. A FIFA.com featured article theorized that he would form the basis of young players who go on to represent Qatar at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

He was named part of Qatar's squad for the 23rd Arabian Gulf Cup held in Kuwait in from December 2017 to January 2018.

He was part of Qatar's squad at 2019 AFC Asian Cup which helped them to win their first continental title. On 30 March 2021, he played his 100th match for Qatar in a 1–1 friendly match against the Republic of Ireland.

Controversy
Following the three-loss streak of the Qatar national football team in the group stage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, screenshots of a conversation with Hassan on Snapchat surfaced and started circulating over social media. In the conversation Hassan displayed a careless and apathetic attitude towards the poor performance of the team with a now-famous remark, saying: “استريح عبالك حرب” (lit. 'Relax! It’s not war'). Following the remark, the Qatar Football Association announced on its official twitter account the exclusion of Hassan from the national team as did Hassan’s club Al Sadd SC from the player roster.

Club
1Includes Emir of Qatar Cup. 2Includes Sheikh Jassem Cup. 3Includes AFC Champions League.

International goals
Qatar score listed first, score column indicates score after each Hassan goal.

Honours
Al-Sadd
 * Qatar Stars League: 2012–13, 2018–19, 2020–21, 2021-22
 * Emir of Qatar Cup: 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020, 2021
 * Qatar Cup: 2017, 2020, 2021
 * Sheikh Jassim Cup: 2014, 2019
 * Qatari Stars Cup: 2019-20
 * AFC Champions League: 2011
 * FIFA Club World Cup third place: 2011

Persepolis Qatar U23
 * Persian Gulf Pro League: 2023–24
 * GCC U-23 Championship: 2011

Qatar
 * AFC Asian Cup: 2019
 * Arabian Gulf Cup: 2014

Individual
 * Asian Footballer of the Year: 2018
 * AFC Asian Cup Team of the Tournament: 2019
 * Qatar Stars League Team of the Year: 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20