Indonesia’s Football Association (PSSI) has announced that a friendly will be held between Palestine and Indonesia on June 14th of this year.
The proposal was finalized during the FIFA Congress in Kigali, Rwanda this week.
There was no mention of a contingency plan should the two sides be drawn together in the same group for the 2023 Asian Cup. Palestine and Indonesia are locked into Pots 3 and 4 respectively and there is a 16% chance the two sides could face off in Qatar.
The date of the proposed friendly means that neither side is seriously considering participation in the CAFA Championship. The Central Asian region is due to hold a senior men’s tournament for the first time this June and has confirmed that Russia will be amongst two guest teams invited to play.
CAFA is currently looking for an additional Asian team to play in the tournament from June 9th to 21st but has already been spurned by Thailand:
It will be interesting to see how both Palestine and Indonesia react in the event they are draw together. The identity of the 8th team participating in the CAFA Championship is likely to become clearer following the Asian Cup draw on May 11th.
Palestine and Indonesia have faced off twice before. Their first encounter was a friendly in 2011- when an experimental side led by interim coach Abdel Nasser Barakat lost 4-1 in Jakarta. Suleiman Obeid scored Palestine’s only goal and the only truly remarkable thing about the match was that it marked the debut of Haitham Dheeb.
The following year the two teams met in an unofficial match as part of the Nakba Cup. This time Jamal Mahmoud’s side emerged 2-1 winners thanks to a Husam Abu Saleh penalty kick and Fahed Attal’s last goal in a Palestine shirt.
