Wessam Abou Ali gives Columbus Crew a "clinical finisher" | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

As he introduced the club’s biggest signing of the summer on Tuesday, Columbus Crew general manager Issa Tall compared Wilfried Nancy to a chef.

A perusal of the 2023 MLS Cup champions’ recent results suggests it’s a useful metaphor for their current outlook as they sit sixth in the Eastern Conference, seven points back of frontrunners and in-state rivals FC Cincinnati with eight matches left in their regular season.

The Crew have been lacking an important dash of spice, and they believe Wessam Abou Ali will bring the missing flavor.

"We are trying to get players with a certain game intelligence that can adapt pretty quickly. Now, when it comes to Wessam, it's one of the ingredients for Wilfried to cook his recipe,” Tall said as the Denmark-born Palestine international was unveiled at Lower.com Field. “We can see him playing as a lone striker; he can play with two strikers, he can play behind one of the strikers, he’s been on the wing before, so he can play there.

"We needed to have a clinical finisher in the box that can score different ways, and that's what he has, scoring with both feet, with the head, set pieces.”

Established goalscorer arrives

The Crew’s newest Designated Player, Abou Ali fills the gap left by star striker Cucho Hernández’s departure to Real Betis over the winter – a hole that’s lingered at the spearhead of Nancy’s attack despite his and Tall’s best efforts to compensate in the aggregate, and with the acquisition of Dániel Gazdag in April.

Columbus's 42 goals scored this season are running well behind their 48.61 expected goals, and looks likely to fall well short of the second-best-in-MLS 72 they tallied last year. While they remain one of the league’s most ball-dominant, aesthetically-pleasing sides – which helped convince Abou Ali to make the move from Egyptian powerhouse Al Ahly – that paucity of ruthlessness in front of goal is a key factor in their middling 5W-4L-6D record since mid-May.

"It was a club with an idea, with ambitions. They play the best football in the MLS, or soccer, as you guys say. So it was very simple,” said the 26-year-old. “I felt like I had an opportunity to come here and help the team. They were maybe missing out on a striker, on that position.

"It took some time, it was difficult, but we got it done in the end and I'm super excited.”

Pursuading a global star

Columbus’ pursuit dates back to December, Tall & Co. having admired his “effort and audacity” for years, since his time in Scandinavia. Abou Ali’s star turn in the FIFA Club World Cup complicated matters, though.

He rocketed into the global spotlight with a hat trick in Al Ahly’s riveting 4-4 group-stage draw with FC Porto at MetLife Stadium in perhaps the wildest match of the tournament, made all the more memorable by the Cairo club’s surprisingly large throngs of passionate red-clad supporters in suburban New Jersey.

Tall later admitted to being “pissed” at the sudden prospect of Abou Ali’s new fame derailing his move to the Ohio capital amid interest from elsewhere. Yet the player himself had already taken note of the Crew’s patient, persistent recruitment and had positive firsthand reports from an old friend, defender Malte Amundsen. So he stayed the course, even amid resistance from Al Ahly and their fans, who were desperate to keep hold of the man who helped the Red Devils win the African Champions League and back-to-back Egyptian Premier League titles.

"I was very convinced. I had many talks with my agent,” explained Abou Ali. “I'm the type of guy – I prefer to go to a club where people scout me well, where people have an idea of where they see my role in the team, and maybe not because I played one good game at a World Cup, for example.

“I had a good training session,” he later added, “today and yesterday, training with the team. Very impressed, very, very impressed. You can feel this is a team that's good on the ball. People are quick, very quick-minded, and some different things I have to adapt to, while still keeping my style of play, the direct style I have as a striker, because that's something I don't want to lose as well.”

Unique addition

The reported $7.5 million-plus fee paid by Columbus ranks third in club history, behind only Cucho and Lucas Zelarayán, and would make Abou Ali the most expensive outbound transfer both in Egyptian league history and among Palestinian players all-time.

He also appears to be just the third Palestinian international ever to play in MLS, another pioneering aspect of his move to North America.

“As a person born in Denmark, roots from Palestine, I'm happy and proud of that,” he said. “Playing in the Palestinian national team, it's a big honor to represent my country and represent my people.

“To be a big face of the Palestinian national team and the people is, of course, a thing I'm proud of, and if I can make people happy by doing the thing I love the most, [which] is playing soccer, then that's enough for me.”

Nancy and his staff have been careful to bring him along slowly since his arrival, mindful of a recent hamstring issue. But Abou Ali said the injury “has been good for some time,” and he hopes to make his Crew debut vs. the New England Revolution on Saturday (7:30 pm ET | MLS Season Pass).