Ali was a member of the Qatar squads which won back-to-back AFC Asian Cup titles in 2019 and 2023; at the 2019 Asian Cup, he scored a single-edition record nine goals, and was named the tournament's best player.[5] He is also the only footballer to score in three different intercontinental championships — those being the AFC Asian Cup, the Copa América and the CONCACAF Gold Cup.[6]
Club career
Early career
Ali was born in Sudan and moved to Qatar as a child.[7][8] His mother is a native Sudanese. He started playing for Al-Mesaimeer when he was 7 years old, then moved to Aspire Academy and played youth football at Lekhwiya SC.[9][10] He was also a part of the youth setup for Belgian club Eupen in 2015.[11]
LASK
In July 2015, Ali joined the senior team of Austrian club LASK.[12] His first and only Austrian Bundesliga league goal for the club's first team came on 27 November 2015 against Floridsdorfer AC, becoming the second Qatari to score a league goal in Austria’s top league, after Adel Jadoua Ali.[13]
Cultural Leonesa
In January 2016, Ali left the club and joined Cultural Leonesa in Spain's third tier, the Segunda División B.[14] On 3 April 2016, he scored his first goal for Cultural Leonesa in a 1–0 victory over Arandina,[15] becoming the first Qatari footballer ever to score in a Spanish league.[16]
Ali rejoined his former youth club Lekhwiya SC for the 2016–17 season. He scored his first goal for the club on 27 September 2016 in a 5–4 win against Muaither.[17] He went on to make 25 appearances and scoring 8 goals, as well as providing 8 assists and being awarded as the best U23 player of the season as his club won the Qatar Stars League.[18]
In the following season, Ali was part of the newly rebranded Al-Duhail, as his former club was merged with El Jaish, and was part of the unbeaten 2017–18 Qatar Stars League title campaign.[19]
On 8 August 2016, Ali made his official senior debut for the national team as a substitute in 2–1 win against Iraq.[24] Furthermore, he was the top scorer in the 2018 AFC U-23 Championship with six goals and played an instrumental role in Qatar's third-place ranking.[25]
2019 AFC Asian Cup
Ali celebrating after scoring a goal against UAE at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup semi-final.
Ali was selected for Qatar's squad in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. He found the net in his team's first group stage game against Lebanon. In the next game against North Korea, he scored a four goals in a span of 51 minutes,[26] the second fastest time to four goals after Iranian Ali Daei, who scored four goals in 23 minutes against South Korea in the 1996 AFC Asian Cup.[27]
The following match, against Saudi Arabia, he increased his tally in the competition to seven goals after scoring both goals in the 2–0 win.[28] In doing so, he became the joint-top scorer in the AFC Asian Cup Group Stage, sharing the record with Ali Daei of Iran, Choi Soon-ho of South Korea and Naohiro Takahara of Japan. He also broke Mansour Muftah's all-time record of five goals scored for the Qatar national team in the AFC Asian Cup.[29]
On 30 January 2019, soon after the 4–0 defeat at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup semifinal, the UAE FA lodged a formal appeal to the AFC over the eligibility of Sudanese-born Almoez Ali and Iraqi-born Bassam Al-Rawi, claiming that they did not qualify to play for Qatar on residency grounds based on Article 7 of the FIFA statute [33] which states that a player's eligibility to play for a representative team if he has "lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association". It was alleged that Almoez had not lived continuously in Qatar for at least five years over the age of 18, although the player claimed that his mother was born in Qatar.[34] On 1 February 2019, the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Committee dismissed the protest lodged by the United Arab Emirates Football Association without further comments or explanation.[35][36][37] In August 2020, the case was finally settled at CAS (Court of Arbirtration for Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland) with the UAE losing its appeal against the Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) decision.
2019–2022: Invitation tournaments and 2022 FIFA World Cup
On 16 June 2019, Ali scored in Qatar's 2–2 draw with Paraguay in the 2019 Copa América.[38] Ali was included in Qatar's squad for the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup. He scored four goals in the competition to clinch the top scorer award.[39]
In November 2022, he was included in Qatar's squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He started in all three group matches as Qatar made its first appearance at the FIFA World Cup tournament.[40]
2023 AFC Asian Cup
On 3 January 2024, Ali was named in Qatar's squad for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup.[41] In the team's opening match of the tournament, he scored Qatar's second goal in a 3–0 win over Lebanon in Lusail.[42] In the semi-final match against Iran, he scored the winning goal in a 3–2 victory, which qualified his country to their second final in a row.[43] On 10 February 2024, Ali won the 2023 AFC Asian Cup which was his second in a row for him.
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