He will strain every sinew, fly into every challenge, pick every pass, and display all the leadership qualities developed in over 15 years as a professional to try and breathe new life into Ipswich’s bid to avoid relegation. Just as he did at Molineux back in December.
But, once the dust settles and afternoon turns into evening at Portman Road – whatever will be, will be and all that – well then, for anyone of a Wolves or indeed Wulfrunian persuasion, the story of Samy Morsy is one which should ultimately fill them with great pride.
He remains, a Wolverhampton lad. Born in the city, he attended Christ Church and Woodthorne schools before moving to Thomas Telford. His parents, Mekawy and Karen, still live locally, not all that far away from Molineux.
For eight years Morsy emerged and developed his talents and personality at the Wolves Academy. At 16, he was released, one of the cast of hundreds of thousands of footballers who have their dreams dashed and see hopes of a full-time scholarship evaporate with the cruel pain of rejection.
Morsy, though, has always been made of pretty stern stuff. And highly renowned Wolves Academy recruitment chief Tony Lacey, part of the decision-making process which saw Morsy’s great pal Nathan Rooney land a scholarship in front of him, already had a plan in place.
Via Lacey’s links, the young midfielder was recommended to John Rudge at Port Vale. After one or two teething problems at Vale, eventually, he flourished.
Morsy had taken two small steps back – Wolves were then in the Championship and Vale in League Two – but has since made so many giant leaps forward.
Well over 550 senior appearances – a substantial chunk of which have been as captain – six separate promotions, representing Egypt at a World Cup, donning the armband in the Premier League. It’s been a hell of a career.
And it all began, and was forged, in Wolves Academy.
“Obviously when you are working in the Academy, the main ambition is to bring players through who go on to play for Wolves,” says Nick Loftus, whose 16 years as Education & Welfare Officer co-incided with Morsy’s emergence through the ranks.
“But alongside all that, you are wanting to produce players and people who are successful wherever they end up, whether in football or other parts of working life.
“Sometimes you take as much pride, if not more, in those who make it elsewhere because that also means they have managed to overcome the disappointment of not being given a scholarship.
“And it can be just as pleasing to see them go on and achieve in other careers, accountancy for example, something which is completely different.
“But when you get someone like Samy, who you know just wants to succeed at being a footballer, to see him go on and have the career that he has will fill everyone at Wolves Academy with so much pride.
“I am sure there are many people who will have played their own small part in his development and worked with him through those years who, like me, have been delighted to keep track on his progress.”
Morsy is now 33, and his Premier League debut, against Liverpool on the opening day of the season, came into his sixth century of senior appearances.
It has been a long wait. And yet that, in itself, shows just how much of a long and winding road he has negotiated enroute to reaching the pinnacle of league football. The work he has put in, the sacrifices made.
Les Green, another former long-serving member of Academy staff who brought in so many future gems as a scout, recalls how a colleague Roger Fletcher had first brought Morsy’s older brother Nader, a quick and clever winger, into the fold.
Nader, also a bright academic alongside his football, would gradually drift away from the game having also spent time with Shrewsbury, but not before his younger brother had started coming along as well.
And that is where Rooney, from Telford, first met the younger Morsy, the pair of them a mere eight years old, to launch a friendship which is still going strong two-and-a-half decades later.
“We’d go training at Aldersley and we hit it off straightaway, on and off the pitch,” Rooney recalls.
“We were both tenacious, always wanted the ball, and bounced off each other.
“It’s funny because we were talking only recently about our first ever match for Wolves, away at Liverpool, when we were coached by Steve Burrell.
“We won it 4-3, and Samy’s mum has still got a photo from that very first game.
“I can remember I normally played midfield but was at right back that day because Samy was in the middle.
“But a few months in, we formed a central midfield partnership that lasted from Under-9s through to Under-16s, and also in schools’ football at Thomas Telford as well.
“And a friendship that has continued and is just as strong now as it was then.”
Morsy’s game, although most definitely reshaped and improved under Ipswich boss Kieron McKenna with a greater speed of movement and a wider passage range, has rarely wavered from those crucial core facets of a defensive midfielder.
He is strong, combative, a ball-winner who puts in the hard yards, one of those unsung heroes who seldom hog the headlines but are appreciated so much by their team-mates.
“I remember watching Samy through the Academy, and he was just so consistent with his performances,” adds Loftus, who presided over Morsy featuring for Wolverhampton District Schools Under-11s team, prior to moving across to Thomas Telford.
“He was always a very good player, and I would say he gave eight out of ten performances pretty much every week – never really a ten, but always an eight, which was so important in the position that he plays.”
For Green, he particularly remembers how Morsy flourished at Academy level thanks to his energy and stamina.
“It was all 11 against 11 in those days with no organised football below under-10, and that meant that as the boys got older, the pitches got bigger and some of them got swallowed up.
“To progress to higher levels, it was vital that they had the ability to run.
“The tempo in the Championship is quicker now than it was in the Premier League 20 years ago – I call it basketball football, especially since passing out from the back is changing.
“Samy was perfect for getting around the pitch, banging in tackles, and while he’s not the biggest, neither was Billy Bremner.
“He has gone on to develop a professional mentality – a natural leader and a born captain. One of those who always gives exactly what it says on the tin, a pro’s pro.”
Rewinding back to those Academy years, even if it doesn’t eventually lead to a professional contract, for so many young scholars it is very much the time of their lives.
Rooney is no different, recalling the fun not just with training and matches but plenty of trips for tournaments, notably to Japan, pursuing, and sharing, their collective dreams.
All the time with Morsy by his side, not just in the engine room, but also off the pitch, their similar personalities also prompting a spot of mischief every now and again.
“I’d say we were both a bit cheeky, nothing more than that, but perhaps pushing the boundaries when we could,” Rooney admits.
“Samy and Nathan were, and are, very likeable characters – everyone would say that and speak highly of them – and in the Academy they were inseparable,” adds Loftus.
“But ultimately, they probably needed to be split up to give them the best chance of going on to become successful.”
At Under-16 level, waiting for the big decision about who would get the full-time scholarship, that is precisely what happened.
Rooney, Morsy and another scholar Jake Brown, had formed an impressive central midfield triumvirate which left them all believing they had a decent chance of taking the next step forward.
As it was, only Rooney – perhaps in part due to the extra goalscoring threat which had brought him 24 goals in the Under-16 season – was handed the scholarship, with the other two released.
“I think I was more gutted than he was,” Rooney reflects.
“We had played together for so long and while I was confident in myself because I was playing well, I thought he was a dead cert to get a scholarship as well.
“In the end they said it was down to me being more of a goalscorer as a number eight, while Samy was more of that tenacious type, as a number six.”
By his own admission, Morsy later admitted that he had lost his focus, that football had moved down the pecking order in his priority list, and others acknowledge that he maybe needed to ‘get out of Wolverhampton’ to create a new dynamic and a fresh pathway.
Even though he landed a scholarship with Port Vale so quickly that there wasn’t much time for the Wolves disappointment to seep in, Morsy didn’t immediately hit the ground running.
In his first game for the Under-18s, he was substituted after an hour. Again, in his own words, his performance, his attitude, just wasn’t right. But at the same time, it was to prove the wake-up call that he needed, to knuckle down and move on to greater heights.
Among those who helped play a part in that was another former Wolves influence, Paul Cook, who signed Morsy on three separate occasions and shared a couple of the six promotions he has enjoyed with Port Vale, Chesterfield, Wigan (2) and Ipswich (2).
The indefatigable determination and hunger which now forms so much of his game soon came to the fore. And no doubt much of that was influenced by his parents.
His father Mekawy was 21 when moving to Manchester from Egypt, initially taking on whatever jobs he could to make a living, eventually working in a pizza shop where he met Karen. All these years on, Mekawy runs a thriving property business in Wolverhampton, they both still live in the city, and family is most definitely king.
“That has definitely rubbed off on Samy,” adds Rooney, who didn’t make it professionally himself but went on to play at a decent level at non-league and now works in construction, as well as being happily settled with a family of his own.
“Honestly, he is so humble. Nothing fazes him and when we talk about him playing in the Premier League it’s like he is still in League One, he just gets on with it and doesn’t get carried away.
“We had our moments back in the day but when it came down to it, while I fell off a little bit in my football, he showed he had that tunnel vision – he knew where he wanted to go, and everything was working towards that.
“The word I would use now, alongside humble, would be discipline.
“For Samy now, he has a lovely wife and daughter, and everything is about his family and football.
“He very much looks after himself and lives properly and that has stood him in such good stead for being a regular – and a captain – in the Premier League.”
Rooney recently accompanied Morsy back on a visit to Thomas Telford for a documentary being filmed about his career. Nothing was too much trouble, and he was happy to spend as much time as necessary talking to students, re-living those schooldays, which also included winning a national cup.
And with leadership also comes the need for honesty and integrity. In a toxic social media climate where every fact or opinion can lead to a thousand cuts, Morsy, a practising Muslim who has just observed Ramadan, does not hesitate to speak up for what he believes is right. Most notably, Gaza, and shining a light on the plight of the civilian population in the wake of the ongoing conflict.
He is a son of Wolverhampton with a strong moral and social conscience.
So, on Saturday, he will step out against Wolves, his home city club and the one which helped develop and nurture the talent which has brought such a fantastic career, which still has plenty more time to run.
Rooney will be there, watching his pal, just as he does on so many occasions and did on the final day of last season as Ipswich beat Huddersfield to clinch promotion to the Premier League, Morsy being named Player of the Year for the third time in his career.
Even though those recollections of Molineux and Compton sit so fondly in the Morsy memory bank, he will be doing whatever he can for his team. His commitment and ambitions, his status as a proud Ipswich captain, demand it. In any case, he knows nothing different.
“When Samy was younger he had a whiteboard at home, where he had listed all his ambitions in marker pen,” says Rooney.
“Stuff like when he wanted to reach different achievements like playing in League Two, League One, the Championship and the Premier League.
“Each time he achieved one they would get ticked off, although most of them came after he had moved on having left Wolves to rebuild his career elsewhere.
“He even had the World Cup on there, with a question mark by the side. But he didn’t need the question mark, because he has managed to achieve that as well.
“We still laugh about him setting those targets, but he has gone on to achieve them all, and I still think his time at Wolves has played a part in starting him off along the journey.
“Having that knockback probably made him strive for greatness even more, and, as his friend, I am immensely proud of what he has achieved.”
