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Khalid Boulahrouz Biography
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Khalid Boulahrouz (born December 28, 1981, in Maassluis, Netherlands) is a Dutch footballer of Moroccan descent, who plays for the Netherlands and Chelsea of the English Premiership.[2] His nickname is "Khalid the Cannibal" for his ability to "eat up" his opposition.[3]He recently joined Chelsea from Hamburger SV, and wears the number 9 shirt for his club.
Personal life
Boulahrouz, a Dutch-Muslim, was born into a Moroccan family living in the Netherlands. He has eight siblings. When he was younger, he had a lot of problems, such as being sent away from the youth teams of Ajax and Haarlem. When he was sixteen his father died and he had to take responsibility for his family.
Club career
In his youth Boulahrouz played consecutively for Excelsior Maassluis, DSOV, Ajax, HFC Haarlem and AZ Alkmaar.
RKC
After a difficult period playing for different clubs, he finally found some stability at RKC Waalwijk, where coach Martin Jol gave him the confidence he had been looking for.[4] He began his professional career in the Dutch Eredivisie for RKC on March 9, 2002, against SC Heerenveen.
Hamburger SV
After playing 2 seasons for RKC he moved to Hamburger SV to play in the German Bundesliga at the start of the 2004/05 season. While at HSV he earned his nickname "Khalid der Kannibale" ("Khalid the Cannibal") for his ability to eat up the opposition.[3] This is illustrated by the amount of cards he received - 16 yellows and 3 reds in two seasons at the club. He was also part of a defence that conceded the least amount of goals in the 2005/2006 Bundesliga season: 30 goals in 34 games.
Chelsea
On August 18, 2006, Chelsea agreed a fee with Hamburg to sign Boulahrouz. The fee is thought to be around £8,500,000 (€12,000,000). After Chelsea's opening game of the 2006-07 season, manager José Mourinho confirmed that the club had signed Boulahrouz and the club is only waiting for his international clearance to be finalised, before speaking of the potential roles Boulahrouz will have in the side. Mourinho stated "In a short squad and in a country where you can have only 16 players for a match, it’s important to have cover for many positions. So, for example, now I can have Boulahrouz, Ricardo and John — three options for the centre; I can have Paulo and Boulahrouz — two options for the right side; I can have Boulahrouz and Wayne Bridge — two options for the left side.." Boulahrouz is now Chelsea's most versatile defender.
On August 21, 2006 Chelsea completed the signing of Boulahrouz. Six days later, he was handed his Premiership debut against Blackburn Rovers. He wore the number 9 shirt, previously occupied by Hernán Crespo - this is an unconventional number for a defender, being traditionally associated with strikers, but was given to him just because it happened to be one of the numbers not currently allocated to a player by Chelsea at the time of signing.
He was out for a lengthy period of time after a knee injury. On his return, he dislocated his shoulder while playing against Norwich
International career
After moving to Hamburger SV his impressive displays made Marco van Basten pick him for the Netherlands national football team. He made his international debut on 3 September 2004 in a 3:0 win for the Netherlands against Liechtenstein, and was named to the squad for the 2006 World Cup. He has managed 19 caps for the national side, as of August 2006.
Boulahrouz was sent off from the Netherlands match against Portugal in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Round of Sixteen after a second bookable offence. He was adjudged to have used an elbow on Portugal's Luís Figo.
source: wikipedia.org
GNU Free Documentation License
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