Early career As a 13-year-old boy, Orabi attempted to join
Al Ahly in 1975, but did not succeed. He unsuccessfully tried out once again at Al-Ahly in 1978. In 1981, he trained for two weeks with the first team of
Arab Contractors but failed to impress the technical staff to sign him. Encouraged by a friend named Abdul Moneim Muhammad Ali, Orabi was introduced to Ahmed Maher, Al-Ahly U-21 Manager. Maher decided to attach Orabi to the team in 1982.
Al-Ahly Orabi first appearance with Al-Ahly's first team was in 1982–83 season against
Olympic Alexandria, when
Mahmoud El-Gohary was Al-Ahly manager and
Abdel-Aziz Abdel Shafi was the Football Director. Orabi was introduced as a substitute for
Mokhtar Mokhtar in the last 20 minutes of the match that was played in
Alexandria. Al-Ahly won 6–0 as
Zakaria Nasef scored 3 goals,
Fawzi Scotty 2 goals, and Mokhtar Mokhtar 1 goal. Orabi's professional football career began in the 1983–84 season and ended in the 1998–99 season. During this 16 seasons span, Orabi won 28 different championship titles with Al-Ahly. He achieved an unprecedented record for any player by winning the football league 10 times during his career.
National team Orabi participated in the
1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy and played one of Egypt's three matches in the competition. He played the full match against
Ireland, which ended in a 0–0 draw. The match was moderated by Belgian referee Marcel van Langenhove and took place in June 1990 in the city of
Palermo. ==Coaching career==