The Palestine Football Association announced the squad that is set to take part in the upcoming FIFA Arab Cup. As the tournament is set to take place outside the FIFA Calendar, Palestine and many other teams are set to be shorn of some of their most talented players.
Palestine will be without stalwarts Abdallah Jaber, Saleh Chihadeh, Mahmoud Wadi, Mohammed Balah, Oday Dabbagh, Fadi Zidan and Ahmed Awad.
Teams are only required to release players for official qualifiers and tournaments that are being played inside the FIFA window. The Georgian and Swedish leagues end on December 4th, the date of Palestine’s game vs. Saudi Arabia.
Egypt based Mahmoud Wadi and Mohammed Balah will be representing Pyramids and Al-Masry in the CAF Confederations Cup and both clubs have refused to release players to their national teams during that period.
Outside of the explainable absences there were a few surprises from Makram Dabboub, who elected to drop Musa Farawi, widely seen as a capable deputy to Musab Al-Battat. There are also no players from the Olympic Team in the list despite many speculating that Badr Moussa and Mohammed Dereya would be included.
Poor performances and wild inconsistency have also cost Sameh Maraaba and Khaled Salem a place in the squad. The duo were ineffective the last time Palestine played in September Friendlies vs. Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh.
The squad does include uncapped Abdel Salam Salame- who is a midfielder by trade but has been filling in at right back for Hilal Al-Quds- and forward Ali Adwi of Shabab Al-Dhahrieh.
There is also a surprise recall of 32 year old Abdelhamid Abuhabib who has not played for the national team since 2018 and has not started a game since November 2015.
The Full Squad is as follows:
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