{"id":283790,"date":"2025-11-14T10:59:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T10:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283790\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T10:59:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T10:59:26","slug":"adam-sweid-and-hussien-el-achkar-could-be-headed-to-the-essendon-bombers-as-the-newest-members-of-the-muslim-playing-cohort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283790\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Sweid and Hussien El Achkar could be headed to the Essendon Bombers as the newest members of the Muslim playing cohort"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"El<\/p>\n

El Achkar and Sweid have spent much of their football journey together.Credit: Paul Jeffers<\/p>\n

Sweid, who spent last year recovering from an ACL rupture, and El Achkar joked together at the start of the 2025 season that the Bombers would, surely, at least select them in the rookie draft. But it soon became obvious, even to them, that they were too good for that.<\/p>\n

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El Achkar, a mercurial small forward who idolises Izak Rankine, kicked 28 goals in only 11 games for the Cannons \u2013 the equal-fourth most in the Talent League \u2013 while Sweid averaged 25 disposals and five clearances.<\/p>\n

Sweid also earned All-Australian under-18 honours and was named in the Talent League\u2019s team of the year. As a similarly diminutive and tough onballer, he studies Richmond premiership star Dion Prestia\u2019s every move and Hawk Dylan Moore\u2019s running patterns.<\/p>\n

The Cannons teammates are expected to attract opposition bids inside the top 40.<\/p>\n

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Essendon\u2019s Saad El-Hawli became just the sixth Muslim to play an AFL game during Ramadan in March this year, so Sweid and El Achkar could join rare company.<\/p>\n

Sedat Sir (24 games for Western Bulldogs), Adem Yze (271 for Melbourne), Ahmed Saad (33 for St Kilda), Bachar Houli (232 for Essendon and Richmond) and Adam Saad (216 for Gold Coast, Essendon and Carlton) are the only other Muslims to play the Australian sport at the top level.<\/p>\n

And Sweid and El Achkar have developed relationships with all of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s extra motivation as well. We\u2019d love for our younger cousins and brothers to look at us and ask questions,\u201d Sweid said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to be the next Bachar Houli, Adam Saad, Saad El-Hawli and Ahmed Saad. They\u2019re the people, in particular, who have pushed us through this \u2013 and we wouldn\u2019t be here without them. That\u2019s a guarantee. They genuinely care about us, so we\u2019re extremely grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweid and El Achkar\u2019s respective families emigrated from Lebanon to start a new life in Australia, but made sure their Australian-born sons grew up familiar with their heritage and religion.<\/p>\n

\"Sweid<\/p>\n

Sweid earned under-18 All-Australian honours this year.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

They each said their parents were their \u201cwhy\u201d, and playing in the AFL, particularly on the MCG, was one way of repaying them for their support and sacrifices.<\/p>\n

Sweid and El Achkar pray five times a day: at sunrise, early afternoon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and again late at night before bed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBy praying, you\u2019re going back to God, and remembering his presence,\u201d El Achkar said. \u201cOur faith helps us with our footy. God has put you in a position to play in that football game \u2026 but what\u2019s written and what\u2019s happening is meant to happen, so we just try to stay close with Him.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Achkar performed an integral role in lifting Sweid up after his ACL rupture playing for Pascoe Vale in an under-16 grand final two years ago.<\/p>\n

Even the ever-positive Sweid admitted he went through about a month of feeling sorry for himself after his injury setback, which came with initial fears his AFL dream might be over.<\/p>\n

Not many people visited him, but El Achkar was among them \u2013 and he came armed with Sweid\u2019s favourite kebab. Watching El Achkar succeed in the months afterwards helped motivate Sweid to do everything possible to make it back to the field better than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing him like that was tough,\u201d El Achkar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I had to support him, and help try to get him back out there. Watching him come back from his injury this year made me so happy. He\u2019s like my brother, a person I\u2019ve been training with for the last three, four years. If he kicks a goal, it\u2019s like I\u2019ve kicked a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"El<\/p>\n

El Achkar and Sweid hope to both be Essendon footballers by next week.Credit: Paul Jeffers<\/p>\n

All that is left now is to wait for their fate to unfold at next week\u2019s AFL draft. Essendon can match any opposition bid on them, but there is no guarantee they will.<\/p>\n

The ultimate dream is for them both to land at Tullamarine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always have scenarios in the car, like, \u2018Imagine we go to Essendon\u2019, but that was in the first half of the year, and we\u2019d have slip-up games, so we needed to actually focus on our year,\u201d Sweid said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, we genuinely have the mindset of whatever club chooses us is the club we will give 100 per cent to.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur dream is to be on an AFL list. If that\u2019s together, amazing, but if it\u2019s not, then we\u2019re both still going to be close. But what a dream it would be to play with your brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over to you, Bombers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El Achkar and Sweid have spent much of their football journey together.Credit: Paul Jeffers Sweid, who spent last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-283790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}