SOUTH PORTLAND — Ahmed Suja and his younger brother Khalid spent hours in their front yard playing soccer. Together they would head to practices to watch their older brothers when Osman, now 25, and Kamil, 24, played for South Portland High.

For the past seven years their father has been an assistant boys’ soccer coach at South Portland.

So it’s no surprise Ahmed, a feisty junior forward with 17 career goals, would be joined on the South Portland varsity this season by Khalid, a sophomore defender.

But truth be told, their father Aweis Suja Abdalla hoped they wouldn’t be teammates this year.

That’s because Abdalla would have preferred Khalid had stayed at Waynflete, which he had attended since the sixth grade.

“But he didn’t want to be there,” Abdalla said. “His friends had all left.”

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Since Abdalla and his wife escaped the civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s, the education of their children has been a priority. Abdalla said he gave up a high-paying job in Saudi Arabia because his oldest daughters would have been denied many educational opportunities.

“This is why I brought them here, for the education,” Abdalla said.

Now the father says he’s pleased that the seventh and eighth of Aweis Suja Abdalla and Mariam Maye’s nine children are together.

“They enjoy playing together and they are more close than they were before,” Abdalla said. “Now I feel they are very close.”

South Portland Coach Bryan Hoy is certainly happy to have both on his roster. While Khalid wasn’t a starter at Waynflete, he has stepped into the role of center defense in the Riots’ diamond midfield formation.

“Probably as a freshman he was just not physically ready to be a starter,” Hoy said. “He’s grown 3 or 4 inches in the past year and now athletically he’s grown into his body. Both Ahmed and Khalid are dangerous on free kicks. Khalid especially in the middle third of the field serving the ball to teammates and Ahmed is a real threat to score in the offensive third.”

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South Portland has gotten off to a 1-2 start. The losses have come to perennial powers Scarborough and Gorham. Ahmed Suja scored two goals in the victory, a 3-0 defeat of Thornton Academy.

“I think as the season goes along we’ll come together as a team,” Ahmed said. “It’s a long season. This is just the beginning.”

Ahmed, who plays center midfield – “right in front of Khalid” – said one challenge for himself and the team is now he’s a marked man by defenses.

The brothers have very different playing styles, different personalities and even root for rival English Premier League teams. Khalid follows Manchester City and Ahmed backs Manchester United.

The 5-foot-9 Ahmed is a scrappy, vocal player that Hoy admits he often has to rein back.

“Personally I just like scoring and if I’m not scoring just looking for ways to score and help out my team,” Ahmed said.

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“It’s like he can flip a switch,” said South Portland senior captain Silas Zechman. “When he gets serious and is in a game he’s as serious as anybody. Even with his size he’ll fight through bigger defenders to get the ball.”

As a defender, the 6-foot Khalid said he likes to “play relaxed, with passing and moving, not really like Ahmed’s style of play, which is attack, attack, attack.”

“I didn’t really know Khalid but from day one of preseason it seemed like to me that he would be a starter on this team,” Zechman said.

While they have seldom played on the same team (both play on elite teams with the GPS Portland Phoenix but are in different age groups), both brothers said they have an innate understanding of what the other is doing on the field.

They also, if needed, can communicate in Somali, though Ahmed admitted the tactic didn’t help in Thursday’s tough 2-1 loss to Gorham.

“No one really understood what we were saying but they realized I was talking to Khalid, so (the Gorham players) were just telling each other to mark Khalid and they ended up double-teaming him,” Ahmed said.

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When Khalid Suja did decide to switch schools it was with the understanding he would continue to challenge himself academically. He is taking a full honors-level class load, something Abdalla proudly points out.

“It’s been a good experience going to school with my brother and having the same experiences as my older brothers did and my older sister, who went to South Portland as well,” Khalid said. “They give me advice about school and teachers. It’s been good so far.”

Ahmed said there’s another key benefit of having his younger brother attending the same school.

“Now I don’t have to walk to the bus stop by myself,” he joked. “It’s just fun having him around more now.”


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