Richmond defender Bachar Houli on why he almost left the hub
Bachar Houli has been among the Tigers’ most influential players but there was a period he wondered whether he should see out this season.
Richmond defender Bachar Houli concedes there were times over the past couple of months when he wondered why he had bothered rejoining the Tigers in Queensland.
Every player has been tested to some degree in 2020, with most representatives of Geelong and Richmond passing 100 days on the road earlier this week.
A season spent in the sun, sand and surf of southeast Queensland has proven paradise for some but there are prominent examples of the lifestyle being unsuitable for others.
For Houli, a considered thinker who is motivated by his family and faith, the sacrifices associated with pursuing a third premiership for his football club troubled him at times.
“I love my fishing. I love going on my boat. I love going camping. I love going to the mosque. These things have all been eliminated and it has been very tough,” he told The Weekend Australian.
“I have had moments throughout the hub life up here where I have really scratched my head and thought ‘Why am I doing this? There has to be much more to life than football.’ But then you think back and you look at the perspective at home and things are not any better.
“I’d think, ‘So, if I go back home, how is it going to look for me? I still can’t fish. I can’t go to the mosque, because the mosques are closed’. Those things that I was missing here, well, I couldn’t do them at home.
“So I thought, ‘fight through it. Be grateful that you have your wife and kids here.’ If I didn’t have them here, there is no chance I would have lasted this long, so they have helped me get through it.”
This year has been one of mixed emotions for the veteran, who performed brilliantly in Richmond’s 2017 and 2019 premierships. Another opportunity comes on Saturday at the Gabba against Geelong.
When the Tigers left Melbourne as part of the AFL’s great exodus north, Houli remained at home to be alongside his pregnant wife Rouba. In July, their son Mohamed was born.
On Brownlow Medal night the 2019 All Australian was awarded the Jim Stynes Community Leadership Award.
This was in recognition of the work the 32-year-old’s foundation has done in terms of inclusiveness and driving social cohesion.
The Tigers star was keen to credit his close friend Ali Fahour. A former AFL diversity executive, Fahour was forced out of league headquarters after a criminal assault charge during a football game but has since found his way at Houli’s foundation.
“He has definitely been the No 1 driver and, unfortunately, I haven’t mentioned his name enough throughout these sort of recognitions, but he knows it,” Houli said. “Every time we achieve certain things in our industry, he is the first one I text and say, ‘I am so grateful for a person like you’. He is one who has inspired me to be where I am today.”
In another significant concern, his mother Yamama went into intensive care in the same month after contracting COVID-19, though she has since recovered.
“I have never been away from home for longer than three weeks but I have been here for three months,” Houli said.
“I have gone to the holiest places around the world from a faith perspective and really struggled towards the end of those trips. I miss my family. I miss my parents.
“Mum was very sick there for a while and I didn’t even get the chance to see her before I left. She has not even met my new son, where as traditionally she (would have been) there at the birth of him.”
It scarcely surprises but regardless of the result in Saturday night’s grand final against Geelong — one Houli is adamant will not define either the victor nor the vanquished — he will be returning home to Melbourne early next week. Prior to Richmond’s preliminary final win over Port Adelaide, he received a photograph from his father Malek el-Houli that brought tears to his eyes.
His dad was holding a leg of lamb aloft and the message read, “This is waiting for you next week.”
“It is not just about the lamb. It is about the memories we have as a family,” Houli said.
From a football front, Houli hasn’t missed a beat despite the time he spent on the sidelines. He has averaged 21 touches a match over the last month.
So influential has the left-footer been that Essendon, the club the defender left a decade ago, were interested in him returning for a couple of seasons to see out his career. It is not just his form that was a factor. Houli is clearly a man capable of enhancing a club’s culture, as Marlion Pickett explained this week.
Pickett, who went from prison to being a premiership hero last season, has been using his life experience as a tool to help troubled youth see there is another path life can take.
“Resilience, dealing with adversity, things like that, I have kind of learnt a lot from Bach,” Pickett said.
“His people are similar to my people and learning off him, and how he goes about things, makes me want to do the same thing.
“He has been a massive role model for his mob and I want to follow him, because he has done so much for his mob, giving back to them.”
Houli’s record in grand finals is superb. In last year’s decider against the Giants, he gathered 26 disposals and laid six tackles and finished second in the Norm Smith Medal count.
Against the Crows in 2017, he took 11 marks, kicked a goal and gathered 25 possessions to finish second, also finishing behind Martin. On that occasion, though, both Damien Hardwick and Adelaide coach Don Pyke adjudged him best afield.
But Houli, who may mark Gary Ablett in the legend’s final game, would prefer not to discuss the reasons for his good form in grand finals.
“If you start to overthink certain things about the next game, it might affect you,” he said.
“I don’t want to think about that at all, about how all of a sudden I have heard that I am a big finals player. That is all external noise and the most important thing for me is focusing on a process and what has gotten me to this stage. That is the basic fundamentals of my football.
“Then you just play footy after that and try to play with a smile and feel as relaxed as possible. When you get to that state, you tend to play your best football.”
That approach will scarcely surprise those who know Houli. No matter the issue, be it on the field or away from it, the star will ultimately end it smiling.
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