Ibrahim Afellay

Ibrahim Afellay is a Dutch football player who plays for Spanish and European champions Barcelona. A product of the senior Dutch national football team, he has also represented at the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Standing at five feet eleven inches, Ibrahim plays usually as a central attacking midfielder for PSV, although he also plays at the right or the left side due to his own creative qualities.

At the age of 14, he was spotted by PSV Eindhoven and rose through the academy prior to making his first team debut as a 17-year-old in the Dutch Cup. He made his maiden Eredivisie appearance after ten days and opened his account the following season, despite being touted as an amazing talent of Dutch team. This attacking midfielder emerged as a crucial figure after two eminent players, Johann Vogel and Mark van Bommel left in 2005. This time proved both as an opportunity and also as a challenge for Ibrahim to prove his skills.

In the 2008-09 season, he almost racked total 12 strikes as a fresh player from a starting place for the national team in the UEFA Euro 2008 match against Romania. On March 207, he announced his decision to represent the Oranje team rather than Morocco and after two years participated in the FIFA under 20 World Cup. For the same, he consulted his mentor, Philip Cocu. After this, he was called up at the end of the month and Marco van Basten, former coach, selected him for the FIFA World cup qualifier match. He joined Barcelona in January 2011.

=== Career Highlights ===

In 2007, Ibrahim received the Johan Cruijff award for being the “Young Player of the Year” in the Netherlands.