In an ideal world, Palestine would have quality opposition lined up to give it the stress test it needs with less than a year to go to the 2023 AFC Asian Cup.
Unfortunately, for everyone involved with the Palestine national football team the ideal situation continues to be elusive. A properly run football federation would have been anxiously working the phone trying to populate every FIFA International window with matches for Makram Dabboub to continue to build on the work he has done over the past year.
At the time of writing though we do not have any word of any upcoming friendlies.
As such it is rather depressing that friendlies are getting announced around the continent but Palestine’s name has yet to be mentioned. Makram Dabboub has gone on the record about how much he detests friendlies scheduled in the traditional August/September window but this year- thanks in part due to the Qatar World Cup- the window falls in late September. That should be more than enough time for the locally based players to get a few games under their legs. With no October window this year it is even more important for the national team to play together before the year is out.
Time to Tinker
Moreover, the issue with Dabboub’s team is not the Starting XI. Barring injury, I think eight out of the eleven players that started against Philippines are guaranteed to start the first game of Palestine’s 2023 Asian Cup.
Rami Hamadi, Musab Al-Battat, Mohammed Saleh, Yaser Hamed Mayor, Mohammed Rashid, Mohammed Yamin, Tamer Seyam, and Oday Dabbagh are unlikely to be displaced from a starting XI. At striker, Dabboub has options- he can go with Saleh Chihadeh, Mahmoud Wadi, or Shehab Qombor.
The only question marks are left back and the #10 position. Perhaps Samer Jondi is the answer at left back but he needs more experience at this level. As for the #10 position, I really think there is more value to having Mahmoud Abu Warda out on the wing than in the middle of the pitch- it would be good to see what the likes of Muhamed Alghoul could do.
Dabboub could even call up a totally experimental group of players drawing heavily on uncapped players in the diaspora to see what they can do. This is what friendlies are for.
For any of that to happen. Palestine need to play matches. Any match would do and that includes the likes of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan any other Asian minnow. Many will scoff at that suggestion but if a player fails to deliver against this type of opposition then you can discard them and focus on handing an opportunity to someone else. All this should be aimed at build out a 26 man squad for next year and there are 10-12 spots that are legitimately up for grabs.
Even if Palestine wanted to play more established opposition it would struggle to line up an opponent. The team very rarely plays non-Asian sides and there’s nothing to even suggest that such a friendly is being arranged.
Here’s the list of Asian countries who have already scheduled friendlies for the upcoming window:
- Australia
- Japan
- Iran
- Saudi Arabia
- Qatar
- UAE
- Oman
- Jordan
- Syria
- Iraq
- Vietnam
- Kyrgyzstan
- Lebanon
- Thailand
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
- Tajikistan
The six other Asian Cup finalists who have yet to schedule a friendly are: South Korea, Uzbekistan, China, Bahrain, and Hong Kong.
Given their handling of the Coronavirus pandemic you can forget about facing either China or Hong Kong. South Korea are in the midst of preparing for a World Cup and will either be fine tuning behind closed doors or against a fellow World Cup finalist.
That leaves the Palestine Football Association with two quality sides- Uzbekistan and Bahrain. From the sides who failed to qualify, perhaps Kuwait would provide a reasonable test.
So the only logical and practical solution is to start calling the FAs of the less established Asian teams. The next time the national team is scheduled to play is the 2023 WAFF Championship in March- there are no windows for official friendly matches before that- bar the World Cup. So perhaps another “useless” friendly wouldn’t be so bad given the circumstances.
