CINCINNATI — Defending goals for FC Cincinnati isn't just Ayoub Lajhar's job. It is his destiny.
His dream to play professional soccer started with his father, Suleiman, who once played professional soccer in Libya, before his untimely death from cancer when Lajhar was just six months old.
WATCH LAJHAR'S INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF SURVIVAL AND HOPE:
“Growing up, having that idea of him and having that picture of him painted, I wanted to follow that path," Lajhar said.
That was until soccer became secondary to safety for Lajhar and his family.
A civil war erupted in his home country, Libya, and caused him and his mother to flee to Tunisia.
"[Tunisia] was the closest place possible for us," Lajhar said. "ISIS was shutting down every possible exit roadway of the country. So the only place was through a back road, and that back road only led you to Tunisia."
To escape the wars and crimes was a safety risk, especially since they were targets.
Lajhar's mother, Nebras Elrebat, was a women's activist at the time, part of a group that faced a hostile and violent environment.
"[My mom] had a big target on her back and one way to get through her was to get to me," Lajhar said.
One afternoon, when Lajhar was nine years old, his family gathered at his home for Ramadan, an Islamic holy period of fasting, prayer and joy. But what followed would change the trajectory of Lajhar's life.
"My grandma had asked me to go to the store, only a two-minute walk up the street...and I had gotten kidnapped," he said.
Two men in a white BMW swerved and held him at gunpoint.
"The opportunity to run away is close to none...you run away, you get shot in your back," he said.
The men then grabbed Lajhar, put him in the trunk of the car, and drove off to an unknown location.
"I spent a day in a cage, and then the other day it was just somewhere locked up with me with a thing over my head," he recalled.
Two days later, a man who had been sitting outside of the store that Lajhar was headed to came to his rescue after seeing what had happened.
"He had followed the car...waited a little while for the guys to leave this place and that's when he came to help me," he said. "I saw him and he gave me the opportunity to run."
Lajhar said the fear for his life gave him the strength to run straight to his mother's house. From there, they fled to Tunisia, but the hardships were far from over.
"We were homeless for about two years...just working any day job, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning restaurants, trying to get everything that we can," he said. "Sometimes not even enough money to go anywhere, so just living on the street or hiding under bridges."
Lajhar said soccer was not on his mind during this time. But a new sense of hope emerged when his mother reconnected with a woman named Manal, whom she knew from working as a translator at the U.S. embassy, who helped get them on their feet.
Manal helped Lajhar join a Tunisian soccer team and helped his mother enroll in a School for International Training (SIT) study abroad program, which eventually helped them move to the United States.
"It took a lot for me to feel at home, just coming in with the culture shock and the language not being able to speak English," Lajhar said.
Yet still, a new chapter of hope was taking place in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Manal connected Lajhar and his mother with a woman named Linda Duggan, who housed them for around six years.
"She was our focal point of everything," he said. "The way she approached me and how she treated me, day by day, made me feel at home after some time."
From there, Lajhar committed to the University of Connecticut, where he notched a team-high seven assists and Big East honors in his final season. Eventually, he signed with FC Cincinnati.
Lajhar made his debut with the Orange and Blue this past spring, an achievement that once felt impossible.
"At the time, it was amazing," he said. "It wasn't until I got home that night... I just cried. I was like, 'Wow, this is where I am now.'"
A moment that brought him back to where this journey first began—with his father—as Lajhar feels his presence from time to time on the pitch.
"Moments of empowerment, confidence boosts, of just a little cockiness," Lajhar said. "Those little moments where I step on the field and get a little nervous, but make one or two plays and get that little confidence boost, that's when I feel him."
As Lajhar now continues to get better each day and live out his life's dream, he knows, as he has his whole life, that he will never have to chase it alone.
"[My father] didn't get to live on," he said. "Knowing that I wanted to do it for him, I wanted to give him the opportunity to look down on me and be like, 'Thank you,' and honestly, I wanna look up to him and be like, 'I did it.'"
