Women’s WAFF Championship: Palestine fall to hosts UAE, Hammer Kuwait to all but book spot in second round

[UPDATE 2.28.2010]: Palestine fell to Bahrain today 3-0 in the third place game. This concludes the team’s participation in the event which has been a bit of a mixed bag. The team’s high point was the 17-0 demolition of the Kuwaiti side to enter the semis but followed that up with a poor 0-10 reverse against Jordan. It is in an improvement on their performance in the inaugural 2005 tourney where they managed 1 draw and 4 losses with a -20 goal differential.

[UPDATE 2.26.2010]: Palestine falls to defending champs Jordan 10-0. They’ll try and recoup some pride when they face Bahrain in the third place game on Sunday.
[UPDATE]: Palestine will play defending champs Jordan on Friday and will contest the final or the third place game between the winner/loser of the Bahrain-UAE match on Sunday.

Palestine’s start to the West Asian Football Federation tournament was a little shaky, falling to the host country 4-2 on Saturday. They have however, rebounded quite well with a 17-0 hammering of Kuwait today to pretty much book a spot in the second round where they will face the winner of Group B (containing Iran, Jordan, and Bahrain) on the 26th of February. The utter embarrassment of the Kuwaiti team led to an uproar in the Kuwaiti parliament with some MPs questioning the necessity of a Women’s National Team (ouch!).



Scorers of the 17(!) Goals:
Wala Hussein 7 (Currently leading scorer of the tourney with 8)
Natalie Shaheen 4 (5)
Caroline Suhjiyan 4 (4)
Nadeen Awda 1 (1)
Aya Elkhatib 1 (1)