[2] Ali became interested in football as a child and started playing for a local team in the Baghdad Al-Jadida district called Timsah Al-Amin.

He then joined the Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya youth team,[5] and he represented them in the Al-Zawraa Youth Championship;[6] he was top scorer at two local tournaments, and was then called up by the Iraq FA to play for Saad Hashim's under-14 team, and with an outstanding performance,[7] he grabbed the attention of the managers of Al-Shorta.

[8] He became the youngest player in Iraqi Premier League history at 13 years and 279 days old when he made his competitive debut for Al-Shorta under Brazilian coach Lorival Santos in the 2013–14 Iraqi Premier League,[9] being substituted onto the field on 85 minutes in the Baghdad Derby against Al-Talaba on 26 March 2014.

[11] In the 2014–15 season, Mohanad played in a four-team friendly competition called the Tournament for the Armed Forces, scoring a penalty in the semi-final shootout which Al-Shorta lost to Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya.

[12] Mohanad was given the number 8 shirt for the 2015–16 season under coach Hakeem Shaker and he scored his first goal for Al-Shorta on 20 September 2015 against Al-Sinaa in the 2015–16 Iraqi Premier League with a header.

[18] Ali returned to Al-Shorta and renewed his contract in October 2017 for three years, taking the number 18 shirt.

Ali began his season with his team with a new coach, Nebojša Jovović, to exploit his speed as he also took on increasing defensive and creative duties.

After months of speculation about which club Mohanad would sign with, he completed a move to Qatari side Al-Duhail in July who agreed to pay an undisclosed fee.

On 15 July 2019, he transferred to Qatari side Al-Duhail on a five-year contract,[34] for a reported fee of $1.2 million.

[40] Mohanad helped Al-Sailiya win the Qatari Stars Cup for the first major honour in the club's history, scoring a goal in the final.

[41] He also played the first three matches of Al-Sailiya's QFA Cup-winning campaign before suffering a head injury that kept him out of the semi-final and final.

He was the joint-top scorer at the 2013 Asian Youth Games with six goals in Nanjing in August 2013, where the Iraq beat Singapore,[44] Kuwait and Thailand in the quarterfinals before they lost to Iran in the semis and the third-place playoff on penalties to North Korea.

[15] He scored for Iraq in an unofficial friendly game against Iraqi Premier League club Naft Al-Junoob on 24 February 2018.

He is physically strong, and is gifted with dribbling skills, anticipation, and confidence in going at opponents with numerical superiority.