Abo and Mohamed Eisa were just seven and nine years old respectively when they left Sudan with their parents for a new life in Britain.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually have a lot of good memories of our childhood there,\u201d Abo told FIFA.com. \u201cSudan\u2019s a very poor country as everyone knows, but as kids we only understood that after leaving. All we knew growing up is that we had family around and we were able to go out and play. We felt we had what we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The brothers nonetheless thrived after switching continents, forging professional careers in English football and, more recently, earning a joint call-up for their national team. With the extended Eisa family still living in Khartoum, and Sudan scheduled to kick off their 2026 FIFA World Cup\u2122 qualifying journey with two home qualifiers, it should have made for an emotional and triumphant return.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the civil war that is devastating this already-impoverished African nation prevented the matches from being played on Sudanese soil. But while neutral Libya hosted instead, denying the team home advantage for a demanding double-header against Togo and Congo DR, Sudan nonetheless emerged with four priceless points.<\/p>\n
That impressive haul has left Kwesi Appiah\u2019s side trailing Senegal only on goal difference at the top of Group B, encouraging dreams of a first-ever FIFA World Cup \u2013 and a much-needed morale-boost for their nation\u2019s people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a fantastic start,\u201d enthused Abo. \u201cWe\u2019re very happy with how it\u2019s gone. Our country has never made it to a World Cup before and, with everything that\u2019s going on, it\u2019s been a good way to give people in the country something to be happy and hopeful about.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though the games were in Libya, there was a lot of Sudanese supporters over there to cheer for us and it was beautiful to see the passion they have. They treated us like celebrities, and you can see how much football means to them.<\/p>\n
“It was a big deal for me and my brother to play for our national team \u2013 and play for those people. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve wanted to do for a long time, and although we\u2019d been close before, injuries and whatnot had always got in the way. I\u2019m so glad we finally got to do it, and that we could make our debuts together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abo, in fact, came on as a substitute for his older brother, who had earlier slotted home a penalty just 17 minutes into that maiden appearance as Sudan drew 1-1 with Togo. Even better was to follow three days later, when the siblings started alongside each other in attack, helping their team to a hard-fought 1-0 victory against another higher-ranked opponent in Congo DR.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was special, standing there together singing the national anthem,\u201d Abo reflected. \u201cThat was probably the only time I got quite emotional about it all. It was special doing all of this with my brother too, and I think we linked up quite well in the game. I play on the left, and he likes to drift out to that side from the centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other players were great with us too. Most of them play in Sudan but me and my brother speak Arabic from having grown up there, so communication was no problem \u2013 and Sudanese people are pretty easy-going anyway.”The main thing for us was to just to bring our experience from England and add to what the team has already. And to win! We knew how important it was to get some points on the board early. Our dad managed to get over to Libya to see us play too, and that made the whole thing even more special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only missing ingredient, amid emotional anthem renditions, debuts, goals and a vital qualifying win, was that Sudanese homecoming the brothers still crave. When conflict calms, and that finally happens, their father won\u2019t be short on company in cheering the Eisas on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have family all over Sudan and, trust me, they\u2019ll all come along once we\u2019re able to play at home again,\u201d said Abo, who has made a happy habit of scoring spectacular goals for his club side, Grimsby Town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abo and Mohamed Eisa were just seven and nine years old respectively when they left Sudan with their parents for a new life in Britain. \u201cWe actually have a lot of good memories of our childhood there,\u201d Abo told FIFA.com. \u201cSudan\u2019s a very poor country as everyone knows, but as kids we only understood that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":917081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-917076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=917076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/917081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=917076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=917076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=917076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}