Hakim Ziyech (; ; born 19 March 1993) is a professional footballer who plays as a right winger or an attacking midfielder for Brasileiro Série A club Botafogo. Born in the Netherlands, he represented the Morocco national team. He is nicknamed "The Wizard", a title given to him by the supporters of his former club Ajax. Ziyech is known for his finishing, dribbling, long passes, technique, and ability from free kicks.
He started his professional career at Dutch club Heerenveen in 2012 and signed for fellow Dutch club Twente two years later. In 2016, he signed for Ajax on a five-year deal, with a reported transfer fee of €11m. The 2018–19 season was the most prolific season in Ziyech's career, with 16 goals and 13 assists in the Eredivisie, which Ajax won. In all competitions he scored 21 goals and 24 assists and he was selected as one of the 3 best midfielders in the UEFA Champions League. At the end of the same year, he was ranked 29th in The Guardians list of "The 100 best footballers in the world". He joined English Premier League club Chelsea in the 2020–21 season, where he won the UEFA Champions League. He moved to Turkey with Galatasaray in 2023, winning the league twice. He then had short spells with Al-Duhail in Qatar and Wydad in Morocco.
Ziyech originally represented the Netherlands, appearing for them at Under-20 and Under-21 level. At senior level he chose to represent Morocco (the country his parents are from), making his debut in 2015. Ziyech represented Morocco at the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022, and the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019 and 2023. At the 2022 World Cup, he led Morocco to make history as the first African nation to reach the World Cup semi-finals, serving as the Captain in the later matches. Since playing for Morocco, he has donated all attained earnings and bonuses from international play to various charities or to the staff of the team.
Early life
Ziyech was born in Dronten, Flevoland to Moroccan parents from Tafoughalt, a Berber village in northeastern Morocco. His parents belonged to the tribal confederation of Aït Iznassen located near Berkane. Ziyech grew up in the southern part of Dronten. He was the youngest of the 9 children in his family. Like many Moroccans between the 1960s and 1990s, a large number of people from northern Morocco emigrated to the Benelux in search of work and better living conditions. Hakim Ziyech's father left Morocco in 1967 with his two sons Faouzi and Hicham for the Netherlands where he worked in a metal factory. Ziyech's mother joined them in the Netherlands and took on the role of homemaker. Hakim has dual nationality of The Netherlands and Morocco. With his brothers and his friends from the neighborhood, Ziyech spent hours playing football on the Cruyff Court esplanade opposite his home. During his childhood, Ziyech regularly watched Ajax stars on television such as Wesley Sneijder, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Rafael van der Vaart. "There were a few players I loved watching, like Ronaldinho and Zinedine Zidane ...players of that caliber. I watched them a lot when I was little. I remember when I was ten years old, I watched their videos on YouTube every day", he said in an interview with UEFA in 2019.
Two of his brothers enrolled in the academies of PEC Zwolle and Heerenveen in the 1990s. As for Ziyech, aged seven, he asked his father to enroll him at a football club in order to practice his favorite sport. In 2001, he started playing football for his hometown club, Reaal Dronten. At Reaal Dronten, he met Aziz Doufikar who was part of the club staff, and the first Moroccan national to make an appearance in the Eredivisie. According to Ziyech, Doufikar would go on to become a great source of motivation to embark on a football career. In his neighborhood, Ziyech often went to the local youth center De Meerpaal to meet his friends and Doufikar, who was also an educator at the center. During this time, Ziyech has told that football was a dominant part of his life: "I went to school half an hour earlier every day with the ball in my hand. During lunch break, I played football. Once at home, I drank, I ate and I went outside again to play football... whenever I nutmegged a big kid, the whole neighbourhood would start screaming. In my life, I have fortunately made the right choices. I had to sort through a lot of my friends who were going adrift. In the end, my real training took place in the neighbourhood". Uninterested in school, Ziyech only devoted himself to football and the streets.
On 23 December 2003, only ten years old, he suffered a great personal trauma, witnessing the death of his father, with whom he had a close relationship. His father, Mohamed Ziyech had suffered from a neuromuscular disease for several months. This event pushed him into youth crime. He thus grew up with his mother, who was forced to raise her eight children using family allowances and unemployment benefits. Ziyech would see two of his brothers return to prison for burglary. They were subsequently dismissed from their respective clubs and would retire from football at an early age. One of the two brothers, Faouzi Ziyech has since stated: "Our last hope in the family was Hakim. Fortunately, he was able to quickly realise what was wrong, having four brothers who went down the wrong path".
Despite earlier support, the relationship between the two brothers deteriorated in later years. In 2023, Faouzi publicly criticised Hakim following an interview with Vogue, disputing his portrayal of their upbringing and accusing him of minimising the sacrifices made by others in the family. He claimed he had played a central role in Hakim's development, regularly transporting him to matches and training sessions, and facilitating his placement in a host family. The feud escalated in 2025 when Faouzi described a video of Hakim with their mother as a "hypocritical act," reflecting ongoing tensions between the siblings.
Club career Heerenveen 2007–2012: Youth and early career Under the guidance of Aziz Doufikar, Ziyech would return to football, progressing through the youth teams of Reaal Dronten and later ASV Dronten. He was also motivated by his older brother Faouzi to continue playing football and not to be discouraged. At the age of fourteen, he made his first return to Morocco to visit his father's grave. On his return to the Netherlands, he was invited on trials with professional clubs SC Heerenveen and Ajax. After impressing the Heerenveen scouts, he left his home in Dronten to be placed with a foster family in the town of Heerenveen, Friesland, where he joined SC Heerenveen's academy in 2007. Ajax had found Ziyech too small to progress in their academy. Once settled in at Heerenveen, he lived a turbulent life marked by delinquency, alcohol and drug problems, and he dropped out of school at age sixteen. Despite a good relationship with his foster family, who are of Armenian origin "he regularly comes home very late, sometimes drunk," says Doufikar. Having been an academy footballer for two years under youth coach Robin Veldman, Ziyech very rarely participated in matches, spending his evenings until five in the morning in the neighbourhood drinking alcohol and using hard drugs. Doufikar described Ziyech during his first years in Heerenveen's academy:
Hakim Ziyech saw Doufikar as his second father, spending his afternoons in indoor gyms playing two-on-two with his neighbourhood friends in his hometown of Dronten. At the age of sixteen, Ziyech participated in an indoor football tournament in the city of Tiel with Jong SC Heerenveen/Emmen. It was during this tournament that he met Mustapha Nakhli, his agent until 2022. In a 2016 interview, Ziyech said, "When I was sixteen, I was one of the best players on the team, but I was the only one who wasn't offered a contract. I often questioned myself: 'I'm a tough guy, and on top of that, I'm a Mocro.' I felt compelled to work harder." Despite his growing recognition, Ziyech continued to grapple with alcohol and drug dependency, even resorting to selling hard drugs to provide for his family's needs. To steer him away from a destructive path and bad habits, his former coach, Doufikar, kept Ziyech engaged in indoor football, emphasising the importance of focusing on the sport.
Heerenveen had been monitoring Ziyech's potential since his early days in their academy. When he was just seventeen years old, his talent was noticed, leading to his promotion to the first team in January 2012. However, Ziyech's off-field conduct prompted his exclusion from the first team until he could demonstrate discipline. At eighteen, he came under the mentorship of Mustapha Nakhli, who rented an apartment in the Zuidas neighborhood of Amsterdam-Zuid, which they shared. Ziyech left his foster family in Heerenveen and resided in Amsterdam for three years with his agent.
2012–2014: First team In April 2012, Ziyech signed his first professional contract with Heerenveen, inking a two-year deal. However, after securing the contract, he had yet to make an official appearance for the club and was primarily involved in first-team training. His first unofficial appearance came on 10 July 2012 during a friendly match against the amateur club Be Quick Dokkum. In that match, Ziyech, starting alongside Oussama Tannane and Rajiv van La Parra, left an impression by scoring his first goal with a remarkable free kick. His performance earned him head coach Marco van Basten approval, and he assured him of a spot within Heerenveen's squad for the UEFA Europa League match against Rapid București. On 2 August 2012, Ziyech made his formal debut for Heerenveen in the first leg of the third qualifying round of the Europa League, against Rapid, playing a total of 53 minutes before being substituted. He made his Eredivisie debut for the club on 10 August, in a 2–0 loss to NEC.
Ziyech scored his first goal for Heerenveen in a 2–0 win over NAC Breda, on 10 August 2013. On 23 August, Ziyech provided two assists in a 3–3 draw with Ajax. On 8 November, Ziyech scored and provided an assist in a 5–2 win over Waalwijk. On 18 December, Ziyech scored two goals against AZ Alkmaar, in the fourth round of the KNVB Cup, one in regular time and a last-minute penalty to draw level and take the game into a penalty shootout, but he missed his penalty and Heerenveen were knocked out 6–5 on penalties. On 21 December, Ziyech scored twice and provided one assist in a 5–1 away win over AZ Alkmaar. On 18 January 2014, Ziyech scored in a 2–2 draw with Roda. On 9 February, he scored in a 3–1 win over Groningen. On 27 April, Ziyech scored once and provided an assist in a 4–1 win over Utrecht, after coming on as a substitute.
Twente On 18 August 2014, Ziyech joined Twente for 3.5m euros, signing on a three-year contract and taking the number 10 shirt. On 5 October, Ziyech scored once and provided an assist in a 2–2 draw with AZ Alkmaar. On 6 March 2015, Ziyech scored twice in a 2–2 draw with Willem II. On 10 May, he provided three assists in a 3–0 home win over Dordrecht. On 17 May, Ziyech scored twice and provided an assist in a 3–1 away win over his former club Heerenveen. Ziyech finished the season with 11 goals and 15 assists in the Eredivisie. For the 2015–16 season, Ziyech was selected as captain of the club; however, he was stripped of the captaincy in early January 2016, after he made disrespectful comments against the club and publicly requesting a transfer. The 2015–16 season was the most prolific season in Ziyech's career, as he scored 17 goals and provided 10 assist in the Eredivisie.
Ajax 2016–2018: Initial seasons and European final