Ismael Saibari
Active- Current or last club
- Bayern Munich
- Country (nationality)
- Morocco
- League or competition
- Bundesliga
- Position
- Attacking midfielder * forward
- How is the religion known?
- Stated publicly by the player
- Last checked
- 7 October 2026
We list a player’s religion only where they have spoken about it publicly or it has been reliably reported, and we link our sources. If something is wrong, or a player’s views have changed, please tell us and we will review it.
Table of Contents
What religion is Ismael Saibari?
Ismael Saibari is a professional footballer who is a practicing Muslim. He has openly spoken about his Islamic faith and trust in Allah, attributing his recovery from childhood walking difficulties to his family’s religious beliefs and his mother’s prayers.
Saibari also made headlines during Bayern Munich’s traditional Oktoberfest photoshoot, where he chose to adhere to Islamic dietary principles by not holding a glass of beer, following the example of other Muslim players before him. Additionally, he chose his jersey number (34) as a tribute to his friend Abdelhak Nouri, stating that visiting the sick is an essential duty within his religion.
Ismael Saibari plays for the Bundesliga club Bayern Munich as well as for the Morocco national team. Previously, he played for the Dutch Eredivisie club PSV Eindhoven, winning three consecutive league titles with them, as well as two KNVB Cups and the Johan Cruyff Shield. With the Morocco national team, Saibari won the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations after Senegal were controversially stripped of it and helped his country reach the knockout stages of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Early life and youth career
Born on 28 January 2001 in Terrassa, Spain, Saibari is the son of Moroccan parents who emigrated from Ksar El Kebir in the 1990s. He began his youth football development locally with Santa Terrassa CD, where he played from 2005 to 2009. Following the 2007 economic crisis, his family relocated to Belgium, where he entered the academy of KVC Willebroek-Meerhof in the Antwerp province.
Saibari subsequently moved through several Belgian youth systems, featuring for K Beerschot VA between 2009 and 2013, Anderlecht from 2013 to 2015, and K.V. Mechelen from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, he joined the youth setup of KRC Genk, where he signed his first professional contract and remained until 2020.
PSV
On 29 July 2020, Saibari signed a three-year contract with PSV Eindhoven. He started out playing for the reserve team, Jong PSV, in the Dutch second division before making his senior first-team debut in November 2020 following a series of COVID-19 cases within the squad. Over the subsequent three seasons, he moved back and forth between the reserves and the first team before he eventually earned a regular starting spot after Ruud van Nistelrooy took over as head coach.
Across his six-season tenure with the club, Saibari made 142 competitive appearances, recording 42 goals and 29 assists. During this period, he helped PSV Eindhoven win three consecutive Eredivisie titles, two KNVB Cups, and three Johan Cruyff Shields. In his final 2025–26 campaign, he scored 15 goals and provided 8 assists in 27 Eredivisie appearances and was named the Eredivisie Player of the Year.
Bayern Munich
On 1 July 2026, Bayern Munich announced the signing of Saibari from PSV. He signed a five-year contract that runs until June 30, 2031, and took over the number 34 shirt as a tribute to his friend Abdelhak Nouri. The German club paid €50 million to sign Saibari plus €5 million in add-ons.
International career
Saibari played for Morocco’s youth teams at both the under-20 and under-23 levels between 2020 and 2024. He made his official senior debut for the Morocco national team on September 12, 2023, helping his country secure a 1–0 win over Burkina Faso. He was a member of the Moroccan squad that secured the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations title.
Saibari enjoyed a truly historic individual run at the recent 2026 FIFA World Cup. He managed to score in all three of Morocco’s group-stage matches. In the opening match against Brazil, he made a spectacular run past two defenders and chipped the ball cleanly over goalkeeper Alisson. He followed that up by scoring the only goal in a 1–0 win over Scotland and netting again in a 4–2 victory against Haiti. He subsequently converted the decisive penalty in a round of 32 shootout victory against the Netherlands to secure Morocco’s progression to the round of 16 against Canada. Sadly, his brilliant tournament came to an early end after he suffered a minor hamstring injury right after that match.
Personal life
Ismael Saibari has spoken openly about his early childhood struggle to walk due to his medical condition. He explained that back then, his goal was never about becoming a professional footballer but simply about being able to walk at all.
As a child, he supported FC Barcelona and dreamed of playing for the Spanish club one day. This love grew because he spent his early years growing up in the Catalonia region before his family had to pack up and move to Belgium. In media interviews, he has expressed a long-term professional ambition to score a winning goal in a FIFA World Cup final.
