Czech mate: How Bahrain’s Abdulla Yusuf Helal made history in Europe

In the space of a few short weeks in 2019, Bahrain striker Abdulla Yusuf Helal graced three of football’s most iconic grounds.

Playing for Czech giants Slavia Prague, Helal’s football dreams were quickly realized with Champions League trips to Inter Milan, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund.

People had questioned his decision to swap Bahrain for the Czech Republic in 2018 but just over a year later he was playing against the world’s best players in the world’s best club competition.

“These are memories that stay with you always,” Helal told Arab News. “I remember in Dortmund it was crazy how loud the fans were. Really crazy. We couldn’t hear each other out on the pitch — it was an incredible atmosphere and obviously I loved the experience.

“It gave me so much playing under such pressure and against such great players. They had Mats Hummels and Manuel Akanji in defense and that was a challenge — a different level of football in terms of speed, quality, physicality.”

Helal is currently preparing for his fifth season in Czechia having signed a few weeks ago for Mlada Bolesav, a club that finished mid-table last season but has designs on reaching Europe.

It will be his fourth club in the small central European nation, which has produced world-class players like Pavel Nedved, Petr Cech, Vladimir Smicer and Tomas Rosicky, as well as Atonin Panenka of dinked penalty fame.

More recently the likes of Vladimir Coufal and Tomas Soucek have impressed for Premier League side West Ham, with the latter a teammate of Helal’s at Slavia Prague.

“It’s not surprised me to see (Tomas Soucek) do so well because he is a fantastic player and in Slavia at that time our team was really at a top level,” Helal said. “He has shown what anyone