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Published 09:58 30 Jan 2020 GMT
Updated 10:10 30 Jan 2020 GMT
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"There were some World Cup qualifiers with Niger coming up in October 2015. I quite fancied playing, so I asked my brother to have a word on my behalf. They wanted to see that I was good enough, so I made some videos of myself playing and sent them off. Thankfully, they deemed that good enough and I got the call."
Ali watched the entirety of the 'home' leg - played in Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa - from the substitutes' bench, debuting in the return in Niger a week later. Despite a 4-0 defeat for the team Ali drew confidence from his individual performance. Still just 21, he looked forward to his next international appearance.
"I didn't expect it to take four years before we played again, but that's the way it goes," he says with a grin. "In the time that had passed before the Zimbabwe game I had improved as a player. Playing here [at Curzon Ashton] is a higher level to the one I was at back then and it's helped me as a player."
In the four-year interval between those two call-ups, Ali also left his job as a factory worker and qualified as a driving instructor - a job which has afforded him the flexibility needed to continue his improvement as a footballer.
"The job has helped me get to know the people and the area better," he adds. "I regard myself as a Mancunian now. I love the people here, I love the place. It kind of feels like my home now."
For Ali, Somalia's historic win over Zimbabwe is tinged with the disappointment of what happened in the away leg in Harare. Falling behind with 13 minutes to play, his side levelled on the night minutes later. With away goals in play, the equaliser should have granted them a safe passage to the next round. Instead, with only four minutes of regulation time to play, Zimbabwe scored a second. Then, deep into stoppage time, they added a third - enough to dash Somali dreams. Despite falling short, Ali is proud of his achievements and cautiously optimistic that football may finally help him reach Somalia in the next year. In Mogadishu, a 65,000-capacity stadium is being constructed. The possibility of the Somali team playing a genuine home fixture in the near future is an increasingly realistic prospect.
"I'm hoping this is the year," Ali says. "To play in front of such a huge crowd would be an amazing experience for any footballer, but for me, it's as much about being there for the first time, in my country. "That," he says, "would mean everything."
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