There were raised eyebrows in Europe when the 30-year-old was made coach of the Egyptian side Zamalek but the former Tottenham maverick has a sharp football brain

Mido is not a man many thought would slide easily into management. As a player, the Egyptian striker had an unsettled career – playing for 11 clubs in 14 years, including Tottenham, Middlesbrough, Wigan, West Ham and Barnsley – and was often an unsettling presence.

He fell out with team-mates and managers, including Ajax’s Ronald Koeman, who questioned his commitment and temperament. He had to be restrained after launching a touchline tirade at his national coach in 2006. Most notoriously, during a dressing-room barney at Ajax, he allegedly threw a pair of scissors at Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2007 he said he really liked Roy Keane and added that the Irishman would “become a top manager”. But none of this deterred Egyptian officials from making Ahmed “Mido” Hossam the new coach of Egypt’s second-biggest club, Zamalek, last week. Only 30, and with no prior coaching experience, Mido’s appointment raised eyebrows in Europe but it was widely applauded in Egypt.

“We needed a manager who has the personality and status of Mido,” says Gamal Abdel Hameed, a former Zamalek captain, and the man who led Egypt during their last appearance at the World Cup in 1990. “His age doesn’t matter. It’s about his experience and brain.”

Hameed’s is a common view in Egypt, where Mido is viewed as a strong analyst of the game, thanks to his appearances as a pundit. “His predictions always go down well,” reports Hatem Maher, football editor of a state-run news website. “It’s clear he can read the game.”

Mido had retired from international football by the time Bob Bradley, the former USA coach, became manager of Egypt but Bradley got to know Mido and is another supporter of his footballing brain. “I had a number of footballing discussions with him and I always enjoyed every one,” Bradley says. “He is a sharp guy and I appreciated his views.”

Mido spent almost his entire career in Europe and that adds to his aura at home. For his critics, his hopping between many different clubs might indicate a lack of commitment but many in Egypt think this varied experience in many European countries will have given Mido a better insight into contemporary tactics – know-how he can bring back home.

“He’s been trained by the giants of foreign football and he has a different way of thinking to the one we have in Egypt,” says Hazem Emam, a 25-year-old Zamalek winger who has now played both with and under his new manager. “He saw all that stuff and is trying to implement it on us.”

Mido’s youth is also seen as a desired virtue at Zamalek – again thanks to the European example. If Barcelona and Milan can appoint untried 30-somethings like Pep Guardiola and Clarence Seedorf, the thinking goes, it is time for an Egyptian team to try something similar.

“Guardiola is the best coach in the world and he was appointed when he was young,” said a Zamalek ultra, speaking anonymously, who argued that age had not helped Mido’s older predecessors – Helmy Tolan and Hassan Shehata – achieve success. “Age is not the main issue. Tolan is a loser. Shehata, with all his big history and achievements, wasn’t able to achieve anything.”

It helps, too, that Mido is a club hero. Mido did not spend long at Zamalek as a player but he began his career there, returned twice on loan, and remained a fan favourite throughout – partly thanks to his boisterous comments about Zamalek’s arch-rivals Al-Ahly. He also has good relationships with a number of the team’s disaffected stars, and club officials hope this will help him convince some of them to stick with Zamalek despite the club’s financial difficulties. “He might at least persuade them to stay on for a bit longer,” says Maher, “and to wait for the board to find the money.”

And according to one of the squad, Hazem Emam, the players have responded well. “I saw Mido when he was a player and I saw him when he became a coach,” Emam says. “There is a big difference in his personality. He is way calmer than before and in meetings with us he doesn’t make us feel that he is the coach and we are the players. He wants us to feel close to each other.”

Bradley, now coaching in Norway, thinks Mido might just have what it takes to succeed in Egypt. “He’s had experience as a player at big clubs, playing under experienced managers, and playing with big players. He’s an intelligent guy, he’s funny, he’s personable – so he’s got some really good starting points.

“How does he adapt to a new challenge, how does he take responsibility for a group? That part of things will be new for him.”

• Egypt

theguardian.com