The Sydney FC player polarises opinion in his adopted city, not that popularity is an issue for the Iraqi raised with his brothers to fight to win at all costs

If the Sydney derby were a film, Ali Abbas would be one of its marquee stars. Depending on your sensibilities, however, he’d either be the hero who doesn’t know when to quit, or the villain who, well, doesn’t know when to quit. Such is the prism of bias through which many fans watch the game.

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Though humble and accommodating off the field, Abbas is certainly a polarising figure, comparable, if you like, to Indian cricketer Virat Kohli whose talent and combativeness go hand in hand with such a strong desire to stand up to bullies that some would argue he crosses a line and becomes a bully himself. But it’s this mindset that makes Kohli a brilliant cricketer and Abbas an A-League star, and explains in part how Abbas got himself back on the field after a devastating knee injury in November 2014 that ruled him out of the Iraqi 2015 Asian Cup squad and, worse, threatened to end his career.

It’s telling that during the 13 months Abbas spent on the sidelines after tearing both the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee (following a heavy tackle by Wanderers’ Iacopo La Rocca that made the Blues see red) Abbas didn’t do what might have been prudent; that is, to think of, and work towards, a life after football. It’s as if to do so could have created a chink through which shadows and darkness and all manner of negativity would have coursed, swamping him and his hopes of a return to football.

“I did have moments [of doubt],” admits Abbas, speaking to Guardian Australia. “But I ignored them and kept working hard on my recovery. I’ve got a few friends – and I won’t name them – who I heard say, ‘Ali’s not going to come back’.

“Now I don’t like somebody telling me what I can’t do. I hate it,” adds Abbas, who seldom watched his team play due to the pain it caused him. “I don’t know if it’s a sickness or a mental issue but I don’t like to get bullied. I like to prove [doubters] wrong. And I’m looking forward to proving them more and more wrong, and I’m getting better every week.”

Abbas’ fighting spirit was, he says, forged during his upbringing in Iraq where he lived until 2007 when he sought asylum in Australia after coming to the country with the Iraqi Under-23s side. “I grew up with brothers and we used to play football and would do everything to win the game. Fighting, whatever, anything to give you that win,” says Abbas, whose family remain in Baghdad where they watch streams of Sydney games, and talk to him most days over Skype.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ali Abbas remains a hugely popular figure among the Sydney FC faithful. Photograph: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

The footballer’s latest win took place on 9 January this year when he made his long-awaited comeback from injury off the bench and, to complete the fairytale, scored the second of Sydney’s goals in a 2-0 win over Newcastle. “It was good to make the fans happy again,” he says. Since then Abbas has come off the bench in a further four games, including the 16 January derby at Pirtek Stadium where he is about as welcome as a mosquito in a tent.

It doesn’t seem to worry him, and he’s expecting more of the same on Saturday. “I don’t mind getting stick from anybody. As long as I play my game, help my team-mates to win and help the Sydney fans to go home happy, I don’t care about the other fans,” says Abbas, who had been targeted for special treatment by Wanderers fans even before he accused Brendon Santalab of racial abuse – allegations later dismissed by Football Federation Australia after two disciplinary committee hearings – during a game in March 2014.

How much does that incident linger in his mind? Has he any issues with Santalab? “I don’t like to remember history,” he says. “I always try to move forward, to not look back, and worry only about my performance on the field. I have no issue with anybody.”

Abbas will be nervous before Saturday’s sold-out derby but then he gets nervous before every game – until he crosses that white line and touches the ball for the first time, acts which shrink his universe to the parameters of the football pitch. It’s a gift not every footballer has. That said, the derby is a different beast. You can tell yourself it’s just another game, just another three points to fight over, he says, but it’s more than that. “The atmosphere is different,” he says. “It’s a game of passion. For the players and the fans.”

Abbas’ return to football is timely – for him and his club, who haven’t won in four games, endangering their place in the top six. Not only has Abbas’ return thrown him into the mix in two derbies as the season enters the back straight, but it’s also allowed Graham Arnold to choose him in Sydney’s 23-man Asian Champions League squad. Having been devastated to miss the Asian Cup it’s a fair consolation.

Abbas says Sydney are not worried by their recent form slump, nor the extra workload that will be caused by their ACL involvement. The team, he says, has a good squad, all of whom can play in the first XI. Besides which, Abbas believes the team’s recent results aren’t a result of poor effort which makes them easier to take. “We’ve been playing very well but it just hasn’t been going our way,” he says. “That can happen to the best teams in the world. The only thing you can do when you go through a bad patch is come back to the training field, work hard and the results will come.”

That’s a cliché, of course, but as Abbas’ return to the A-League’s big screen has shown, not without a basis in truth.