2010: A Review (National Team)

Palestine 1 : 1 Dynamo Moscow

Sudan 1 : 1 Palestine

Mauritania 0 : 0 Palestine

Palestine 1 : 3 Yemen*

Palestine 0: 3 Iraq*

Dynamo Moscow 1 : 1 Palestine

Palestine 9 : 1 Vatican Priests

Palestine 6 : 0 Golan Heights

A bit of a mixed bag in Mousa Bezaz’s first full year in charge. Aside from the thumpings of amateur, non-FIFA sides the team continued the streak of draws in friendlies. The WAFF tournament started off promisingly enough, with the team dominating Yemen in the first half but failing to score a goal. A phantom penalty, and the unjust ejection of Abdelatif Bahdari saw the team fall to two defeats in the group stage.

What we learned: The team lacks depth, especially when many of the team’s foreign based players are continuously ignored [the most notable absences this year have been Edgardo Abdala (not called up since ’07), Roberto Bishara, Omar Jarun (’07), Roberto Kettlun (’06), Shareef Adnan (’09)]. 2010 did see the return of Mohammed-ali Shatrit, Mohammed Samara, and Imad Zatara albeit in unofficial friendlies against Dynamo Moscow.

The one revelation in the national team this year has been Suleiman Obeid. A late bloomer at 29 years of age, he put in an imperious performance against Yemen, scoring the team’s only goal. He was also very impressive in the second game against Dynamo Moscow despite the fact that he was playing less than 72 hours after the death of his mother.

The Olympic team continued its maturation under the command of The Dinosaur. They beat Jordan 2-0 in a friendly played in Al-Ram. Drawn in a tough group for the Asian Games that featured the two Koreas and Jordan the team once again failed to progress from the group stage after two 3-0 losses to the Koreas. The team deserved to beat Jordan after a complete domination of the proceedings but were unable to do so after a missed Ali El-Khatib penalty.