Maram Hammadi is very good for small talk.
As the owner of Jazz Barbershop north of Seattle, Hammadi often talks football with his clients, who are well aware that he and his team of barbers are big fans. The barbershop even hosts a nearby game every Sunday for customers and staff.
But when Mohamed Salah, the star captain of the Egyptian national team, sat down to exercise before a World Cup match last month, Hammadi was left speechless. Instead, Salah peppered Hammadi with questions about his life.
“You know when you talk to your father and you feel like you’re talking to a mentor, and whatever he says, you use that as education? It feels the same way,” Hammadi said in an interview this week.
It was the time of a lifetime for Hammadi, 34, who grew up playing on dirt fields in Iraq before fleeing the country during the Iraq War. He came to Spokane, Washington, in 2012 as a refugee when he was 18 years old.
Now, he and three other barbers, all of Middle Eastern descent, were trimming the entire Egyptian team ahead of their 2026 World Cup debut against Belgium.
Players typically have very regimented schedules during the tournament, being shuttled from training to sheltered hotels between matches. But in players’ limited free time, a visit to a small local business can turn it into a global hot spot. Such was the case at Wild Bill’s Western Store in Dallas when Norwegian Erling Haaland brought home a stuffed raccoon hugging a bottle of whiskey from his travels, or when English players visited Betty Rae’s Ice Cream in Prairie Village, Kansas, between training sessions.
But when one of Hammadi’s clients called him to ask if he would be interested in cutting the Egyptian team’s hair, he didn’t believe it at first. The next thing Hammadi knew, he was packing his books and heading to the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle. Even after Hammadi and three other barbers went through an intense security check, he still couldn’t believe what he was about to do.
The first to leave were the substitutes. A team manager checked the work of the barbers before sending out the starters, such as goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir and forward Omar Marmoush. In total, the four barbers cared for about 30 team members for nine hours as players moved in and out of the hotel room between practices, meetings and meals.
At the end of the day, Salah had personally asked about Hammadi. After the cut, Salah told Hammadi that he would see him next week. What the Egyptian king says is valid, which is why Hammadi and his team returned for the second time before the match against Iran. Salah expected Hammadi and his team, which was based in Spokane between matches, to stay for the entire tournament, but Hammadi had a business to run (and Egypt was eliminated by Argentina in the round of 16).
“It’s been an amazing experience for us,” Hammadi said. “Having a Middle Eastern team and being part of the World Cup that we love – we all play football and dream.”
The response has been overwhelming. As word spread about his team’s haircuts, Hammadi said his business was affected by new and returning customers who wanted to come and compliment the store.
“People say, ‘Oh, you’re famous now,’” Hammadi said. “I’m not really, I’m just happy that people actually see that I’m sharing this love with other people.”
That love has been brewing for years. After Hammadi arrived in Spokane, he worked as a dishwasher at Panda Express and then enrolled in an English school for adults. Hammadi attended beauty school once she felt her English was good enough. She started with women’s hair but then “fell in love with the whole industry,” she said.
But Hammadi had difficulty finding work in Spokane, so he went to North Dakota to work in an oil field. She saved money and moved to Seattle in 2018, where she worked in a salon for five years. In 2024, Hammadi opened Jazz Barbershop in Shoreline and is working to open a second location.
Despite everything, football has continued to be a constant.
“You feel so free, so happy when you do it, you know?” Hammadi said about the sport. “It always gives you the same feeling.”
