One magical summer: Fulham sign Abdeslam Ouaddou
We start building out our squad ahead of our Premier League bow.
While everyone falls in love with Morocco in the World Cup, it’s been 25 years since we signed our first player from the country - Abdeslam Ouaddou.
He may have only made 38 appearances across four years, but fans took the towering defender into their hearts. It’s not hard to see why; he recently told the official website:
“Me and my family felt in love with the club, so whenever we can come to visit, and to smell the atmosphere of Craven Cottage, for us it's like vitamins.”
Ouaddou’s arrival at Craven Cottage was certainly a shot in the arm, coming hot on the heels of Edwin Van Der Sar’s unveiling and demonstrating Jean Tigana’s vision of squad depth at the highest level.
At just 22 years old but with nearly 50 appearances for French side Nancy, Ouaddou’s pedigree was evident. But he was still humble enough to go on a short trial earlier in the summer, impressing Tigana and the coaching staff.
And, similarly to Van Der Sar, Abdes had silverware on his mind.
"I'm glad everything has been sorted out. I've signed for four years and hopefully in that time we can win the Premiership."
Looking back, it’s so mad to have these players talk like this. Imagine Hull City coming up and Ollie McBurnie targeting Arsenal at the top of the league.
A centre-back by trade, Tigana told Ouaddou he’d get more joy as a right-back, such was the depth we had in central defence. But he actually made his debut in midfield, in a pre-season friendly against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. He hobbled off on 70 minutes after an impressive performance, concerning some, but was fit to come on as a substitute against Manchester United in our Premier League curtain raiser.
It was his first of eight appearances in 2001-02, before making 13 the season after. The highlight of his Fulham career occured during the summer between the two seasons, when we famously won the InterToto Cup.
Abdes played seven times during our summer run, including 90 minutes in the first leg against Bologna, but he was an unused subsitute in the second at Loftus Road, when Junichi Inamoto bagged his hat-trick to win the tiny trophy.
A loan move back to France, this time to Ligue 1 Rennes, came at the start of 2003/04 as Fulham embarked on a new era under Chris Coleman. It would mark the end of Ouaddou’s career with the Whites, but as a self-confessed Fulham fan, we’d see him back at the Cottage many times in the intervening years.
Our next summer signing would also have extensive experience of France. Though this chap would play a fair few more times in white…
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