Ali Thameem
One day in practice early last season, Maziya’s then-coach Luis Manuel Hernandez called up Aiham. “You are running quite a lot. You are putting in the effort I want from you”, said Hernandez.
“All you need to do now is properly use your head… You do as I say, and one day you will be the best football player in the country”.
Being coached by Hernandez “is a turning point in my life”, says Aiham. “He knew how to deal with people. He knew how to get the best out of his players.”
Aiham was willing to being apprenticed as much as possible to the Spaniard, and to make better use of the ability which both of them knew he possessed. And soon enough, things have “turned out just as he said to me that day,” Aiham says.
At last Thursday’s FAM Awards 2026, Ahmed Aiham, known on the field as “Fatho”, was named Footballer of the Year.
He won the prestigious title over Hamza Mohamed and Ali Fasir. Given the extraordinary seasons both the runners-up have had, Aiham winning the award proved just how influential a footballer the 24-year-old has become – for both Maziya and for the Maldives national team.
Aiham’s journey, in retrospect, is not how one might expect it to have started. He is not academy-trained. Growing up on a remote island with just over 600 people on the northern tip of the country, the boy from Utheemu spent most of his days as any kid with lots of free time would; “kicking around on a piece of ground in his hometown”, as might be said.
He did not play inter-school tournaments during high school – and unlike the vast majority of footballers who are now in their late teens and 20s, Aiham did not play the youth championship.
Super United Sports: Where a Star Was Born
“I actually was not playing football in high school,” he says. Aiham was in his final semester at Villa International High School, playing an interhouse tournament, when he was offered to go on trial at Super United Sports.
Coach Fareed saw Aiham’s potential and liked his style of play. At the time, Fareed was working with Ismail Mahfooz, better known as Imma coach, as they looked for young players who could join Super United Sports.
The coaches eventually met Aiham at a restaurant. They told him they were looking for players like him to join the senior team.
Aiham had already tried training with United Victory. His circumstances at the time made it difficult to continue. “I had at first gone for UV, actually. That, because of how things were with the job at the time, did not work, so I gave it up after a week,” he says.
Super United Sports under-19 team were practicing together with the senior squad. Imma coach wanted Aiham to train with the seniors.
For a young player who had only just begun to find his footing, having experienced players around him was really helpful. “There were senior players such as Benjo and Farra, and also PK (Mohamed Nizaam)”. They kept pushing Aiham to keep putting in the hard work. The seniors at SUS helped Aiham believe that he is “exceptional among the young players,” Aiham recalls.
He began to trust himself more as coach Imma began putting him in the starting eleven. SUS finished the season facing the prospect of relegation. “In the playoffs, I got to score, so that was good; that I played my role, preventing SUS from getting relegated.” The two seasons at SUS gave Aiham the experience he needed to later compete among the star-studded squad of Maziya.
The Green Boys and the Season of Stardom
At Maziya, Hernandez wanted Aiham to play closer to the number-nine, giving him more freedom to get involved in attack. “In SUS, I used to play a more defensive role” Aiham says.
Hernandez saw in Aiham a player who could do more than the grunt work of a box-to-box midfielder. At Maziya, “I was given a free role in attack,” Aiham explains. “Whether it is dribbling as a winger, whether it is taking the ball from the side and overloading the wing, whether I want to pick up the ball from the midfield pockets or to take the forward run as a striker would, I got the chance to play with that level of freedom.”
The coach’s confidence in him gave Aiham the freedom to unleash his full potential on the field. “He (Hernandez) assured me early on that, should I keep up the effort like this, I would definitely be in his starting eleven,” Aiham says.
Aiham signed for Maziya in 2023, although he had to wait until August of last year to make his DPL debut for the Green Boys. And across the DPL season, Aiham scored on five occasions – once against Club Valencia, New Radiant and Eagles, and twice against Victory, in both their head-to-head games.
One of his remarkable performances came in the President’s Cup semi-final against New Radiant. Aiham scored twice in the first half. New Radiant fought back in the second to make it 2- 2 at full-time, before Maziya won the penalty shootout. By the end of the season, Maziya had won the league, the FA Charity Shield and the one-off tournament ‘FAM League Cup’.
But in the transfer window that followed, several senior players departed Maziya. Aiham understands what it means to the club, and he was willing to take on the consequences that come with such a turnover of the squad. “They can’t be replaced easily,” he says.
He is confident about the youngsters who have come through, however. Aiham believes the younger squad have already shown that Maziya can keep on winning titles. “We did win the Charity (Shield), and we won the Cup Winners’ Cup, after the transfers took place”. Because Aiham believes Maziya will never settle for anything less than gold.
“Maziya’s target is always to win the trophy, nothing less. Whether it is the league or a cup,” he says. “We have that level of a team.”
He also knows how things could unfold over the rest of the season. Maziya had suffered a defeat against New Radiant in the second game week, and struggled against Victory in a 2-2 draw this past weekend.
“With the team we lost against (New Radiant), we will get to meet them again, right? So, there still is the chance (of defending the league title)” he says.
On The National Team
Just as his influence within Maziya is growing, Aiham also played a vital role for the Maldives national team in the past season. From winning the South Asian Super Cup to the challenging games of AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers, and later the Diamond Jubilee Championship, Aiham was a regular starter for the Red Snappers.
Aiham received his first cap in a friendly at Mahibadhoo’s Pele’ Stadium in March 2023. Later that year, he made the final squad for the SAFF Championship but did not get on the pitch. His debut eventually came against Bangladesh in October 2023, in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
When asked about the upcoming SAFF Championship, he says, “The national team’s target should always be winning the SAFF Championship trophy. There cannot be another target, right?”
Aiham speaks highly of national team coach Istvan Urbanyi and the confidence he has received from the Hungarian. Before the SAFF Championship, Aiham intends to sit down with the coach to discuss the areas in which he can improve.
Right now, Aiham’s conviction is a shared belief of quite desperation among footballers and supporters alike – who are eager to see the national team return to the top of South Asian football, as Maldives did twice within the last eighteen years.
