Josh WeinfussApr 2, 2025, 06:00 AM ET
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- Josh Weinfuss is a team of workers creator who covers the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL at ESPN. Josh has coated the Cardinals since 2012, becoming a member of ESPN in 2013. He’s a member of the Professional Soccer Writers of The united states and a graduate of Indiana College.
AHMED HASSANEIN’S JOURNEY to your doorstep of the NFL started on a balcony seven years in the past in Cairo round a hookah.
With the roar of Cairo World Airport within the distance, Hassanein joined his two sisters, brother and nephew buying and selling puffs within the sixth-floor penthouse they grew up in overlooking the Heliopolis suburb.
As they handed the hookah, Hassanein’s sisters, Gigi and Aziza Ibrahim, informed Hassanein’s older brother, Cory Besch, about Hassanein’s existence during the last decade after transferring from California at age 6. Hassanein had forgotten how one can talk English, had behavioral problems that led to him to be expelled from college, and was once being raised by means of his mom, who he stated had a substance abuse dysfunction.
“She was once an excessively, very abusive particular person,” Hassanein informed ESPN. “Like beginning with habit, with medication and all that stuff, and she or he was once truly verbally abusive and bodily abusive.”
Via all of it, Hassanein took solace in sports activities together with breakdancing, football, swimming, basketball, boxing, jujitsu, pingpong and CrossFit. He become the top-ranked CrossFit athlete in Egypt and one of the crucial perfect in Africa. It additionally helped him domesticate a powerful paintings ethic.
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Besch, who was once 30 on the time and making his first travel to Egypt in two decades, hadn’t noticed Hassanein in a decade. After listening to from his siblings that night time — June 26, 2018 — Besch began formulating a plan to get Hassanein, then 15, again to america.
“I used to be like, ‘Neatly, what if he got here and lived with me and performed soccer for me?'” stated Besch, who coached at Loara Top Faculty in Anaheim, California.
It was once a significant pivot for Hassanein, who was once set to wait Riverside Preparatory, an army college in Gainesville, Georgia.
“I keep in mind Aziza telling me, ‘It’ll be truly laborious, and it will be some of the tough issues you have got ever carried out for the reason that tradition surprise goes to be there, you are going to lose your entire pals, you’ll be able to’t talk English really well,'” Hassanein stated.
“And I used to be like, ‘I will do it.'”
All the way through a circle of relatives holiday at a hotel at the Purple Sea later that week, Besch helped persuade their father to let him transfer away 7,500 miles. A month later, Hassanein was once on a aircraft to Los Angeles.
Speedy-forward to these days and — regardless of preliminary language limitations, loss of soccer wisdom and enjoying the game for the primary time as a sophomore in highschool — Hassanein is at the verge of changing into the primary Egyptian to be drafted into the NFL. ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller has the previous Boise State defensive finish, who’s 6-foot-2, 267 kilos, going within the 6th around at select No. 216 in his newest mock draft.
“It was once surreal to suppose that we simply dreamed this to save lots of Ahmed and get him to the U.S., like ‘Mission Undertaking: Get Ahmed to the U.S.,’ after which it was once ‘Undertaking: Get Ahmed into Faculty,’ and now it is ‘Undertaking: Get Ahmed into the NFL,'” Gigi stated from her condominium in Cairo.
“However it is all surreal as a result of who would’ve idea that Ahmed can be nice at being a defensive lineman in American soccer when actually seven years in the past, he was once simply sitting at the balcony praying that any person would … get him out of this distress.”
Popping out of highschool, Ahmed Hassanein had scholarship gives from Fresno State, Duke, Kansas and Colorado earlier than in the end opting for Boise State. Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Pictures
THE CULTURE SHOCK was once actual for Hassanein when he moved in with Besch in August 2018.
The whole lot from the meals to the language to university was once other. After which there was once soccer.
All Hassanein knew concerning the game was once what Besch had posted on social media, maximum not too long ago enjoying in a second-tier Austrian league from March to June 2018, simply earlier than he visited Egypt.
“Folks run and hit each and every different,” Hassanein recalled. “That is all I do know.”
When Hassanein arrived in California, Besch gave him a crash direction, explaining the whole lot from how one can placed on his pads, helmet and mouth guard to the game’s regulations.
“The whole lot from line of scrimmage to downs for your position and accountability at the protection,” Besch stated. “And I don’t believe the whole lot was once defined explicitly as a result of you do not ever return and provide an explanation for the X’s and O’s in highschool, proper?”
Hassanein did not understand how to get in a stance or how one can catch a ball, stated Mitch Olson, Hassanein’s head trainer at Loara. His college’s soccer program was once in one of the crucial decrease ranges in California and did not have the sources different faculties round them had. Each and every trainer was once answerable for a couple of positions, and lots of the youngsters did not play soccer earlier than 9th grade as a result of there wasn’t a early life program within the district.
“It is like the child were given pulled off of Mars and began enjoying soccer,” Olson stated.
Nonetheless, Olson noticed the prospective within the 16-year-old sophomore. He coated up Hassanein, then 6-foot-1 and 210 kilos, at defensive take on at the junior varsity crew for the primary recreation of the season earlier than transferring him as much as varsity. It was once, by means of all accounts, an experiment.
“The adventure that dude made and the center that he needed to do, the issues that he did to get to the place he’s, it’s storybook, guy,” stated Mitch Olson, Hassanein’s highschool trainer. Picture by means of Marc Sanchez/Icon Sportswire
Hassanein had no less than one penalty each and every recreation on account of his unfamiliarity with the principles. There was once a recreation through which he grabbed a quarterback’s face masks to carry him down and any other through which he tripped the quarterback, who was once about to scramble by means of him. He remembered throwing avid gamers, kicking other people and flipping them like in jiujitsu.
“I used to be in the market simply doing no matter,” Hassanein stated. “I used to be simply in the market being bodily. See ball, get ball.”
In fall 2018, Hassanein was once staring at highlights of former Los Angeles Rams defensive take on Aaron Donald.
“What highschool does he pass to?” Hassanein requested his brother.
“And he was once like, ‘Bro, that is the NFL, that is the Nationwide Soccer League.’ I used to be like, ‘OK, I need to pass there.’ And he was once like, ‘Bro, you realize you do not need a D-line trainer at your highschool and also you do not need a sled?'”
It did not subject to Hassanein. After chatting with his brother and Olson, and staring at movies, he devised a plan: Hassanein started waking up at 5 a.m. on a daily basis to figure out earlier than college. After college, he’d pass to observe — both soccer or basketball, relying at the season — after which return to the fitness center for 3 to 4 hours an evening.
The whole lot began to click on for Hassanein halfway thru his sophomore season.
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The important thing, Besch, Olson and defensive coordinator Jonathan Rangel determined, was once to let Hassanein’s herbal power make up for no matter method he lacked. It labored.
In the end, Besch began taking Hassanein to camps, the place he was once going through — and outplaying — potentialities from height highschool systems round Southern California equivalent to St. John Bosco and Mater Dei. The night time earlier than one camp, Hassanein studied pass-rush strikes on YouTube and carried out them the following day.
Schools spotted the three-star cross rusher. On Aug. 27, 2020, as his senior season was once postponed till the spring on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hassanein gained an immediate message from Spencer Danielson, now Boise State’s head trainer, who was once then training the line of defense. He beloved Hassanein’s movie.
Hassanein informed his brother, who could not consider it. Besch performed soccer with Danielson at Azusa Pacific College. Hassanein relayed that knowledge to Danielson, and so they hopped on a Zoom name to provide an explanation for the placement.
Hassanein had scholarship gives from Fresno State, Duke, Kansas and Colorado earlier than in the end opting for Boise State.
Had Hassanein’s existence adopted his preliminary plan of going to army college, taking a look again, he idea he’d go back to Egypt after 4 years. As a substitute, he was once residing out a dream he by no means knew he had.
“It intended the sector to me that someone believed, and my brother all the time believed in me, nevertheless it gave me affirmation that I will do that,” Hassanein stated. “I took it as a problem as a result of I had a large number of members of the family say, ‘You will come again in two weeks. You might be by no means going to prevail. You’ll’t even talk English. How the hell are you going to play soccer?’
“And I truly made it. I took it as, ‘OK, watch this.'”
Boise State’s Ahmed Hassanein had 9.5 sacks within the 2024 season. Kirby Lee-Imagn Pictures
DANIELSON STOOD OUTSIDE Boise State’s soccer facility on a June morning in 2021 with a hope and a prayer.
As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, neither Danielson nor any of his coaches have been ready to recruit Hassanein in particular person, so the primary time they met him was once when he stepped out of the automobile that day. Sitting at the back of Danielson’s thoughts was once the truth that Besch was once 5-foot-8, 150 kilos in faculty.
“I am looking ahead to him on the entrance of the ability like, ‘Please be 6-3. Please be 6-3,'” Danielson recalled to ESPN. “If he pops out and he is 5-9 and Cory were given me, I’ll be truly sizzling.
“And he pops out and he simply looks as if a Greek god. I am like, ‘Sure.'”
His first 12 months on campus, Hassanein appeared like one of the vital Broncos’ juniors and was once lifting extra weight than a lot of the upperclassmen, Boise State edge trainer Jabril Frazier stated.
From a soccer perspective, Hassanein was once very a lot a freshman.
“He did not know what was once happening,” Frazier stated. “However he performed at a prime stage.”
Danielson’s means of rectifying that was once along with his “Soccer Faculty,” a weeklong program main into fall camp for all of Boise State’s incoming inexperienced persons. It coated the whole lot from the width of the sphere — 53.3 yards — to the verbiage Boise State’s coaches like to the basics of tackling to A, B and C gaps.
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For Hassanein, faculty soccer was once a completely new recreation. In highschool, he trusted his herbal skill to dominate. No longer such a lot in faculty. He needed to account for the way the offensive lineman throughout from him coated up and blocked in each and every conceivable situation and what sort of offense he was once going through on a weekly foundation.
It was once necessarily Soccer 101 for Hassanein.
“It was once truly eye-opening,” he stated.
In 20 video games over his first two seasons, he had two sacks. Then, going into his junior 12 months in 2023, all of it clicked. Hassanein completed with 12.5 sacks and was once discussed a number of the country’s perfect cross rushers.
Heading into his senior season, he was once coming off labrum surgical treatment and spent the spring staring at his personal movie and breaking down his video games whilst he rehabbed. Hassanein had 9.5 sacks in 2024, giving him 24 for his occupation, the fourth maximum in class historical past.
“I lately have him projected as a overdue fifth- to early sixth-round select as groups are all the time searching for pass-rush assist,” ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid stated. “Hassanein will be part of particular groups early on all over his occupation whilst he searches to earn a task as a contributor on protection.”
Hassanein is at the verge of constructing global historical past. When he does, it’s going to be an emotional second for individuals who helped him at the adventure.
“The adventure that dude made and the center that he needed to do, the issues that he did to get to the place he’s, it’s storybook, guy,” Olson stated. “It truly is. It is a frigging film.”
He is aware of he isn’t the most important or fastest, however he says he thinks his power will assist him develop into a disruptive cross rusher on the subsequent stage.
Danielson described Hassanein as “some of the violent run defenders we now have ever had right here,” pointing to the Broncos’ first defensive play of the Fiesta Bowl towards Penn State.
It was once first-and-10 from the Nittany Lions’ 28-yard line when Penn State tight finish Tyler Warren went in movement from left to proper, overloading the aspect closest to Hassanein. It was once a run and, with a operating get started, Hassanein bulldozed Warren again 4 yards, throwing him to the bottom within the procedure.
To Danielson, that play is the whole lot groups wish to learn about Hassanein.
“As soon as he will get there, he’ll be everywhere the coaches about being higher, getting higher, getting assist,” Frazier stated. “Give him a 12 months to 2 years within the NFL and you’ll be able to be listening to his title so much.”
