Ramzi Saleh apologizes to fans following blowout loss to Jordan

Melbourne, Australia- Palestine’s captain and goalkeeper gave his thoughts on Palestine’s unexpected 5-1 loss to Jordan. Raw footage from the mixed zone above (in Arabic). Translation in English after the jump…

I apologize to Palestinians everywhere for what happened. We entered the game with a lot of eagerness and excitement. We were the better team for 25 minutes and we threatened the Jordanian goal more than once but our lack of experience in Asian competition cost us. There was a suprising mental breakdown and it resulted in us letting up two goals in a minute. From that point on, the match was really lost in the first half. I’m sad and I want to apologize to the Palestinian people and to the Palestinian Community in Australia that came out to support us. The thing that i am most affected by is the feeling that we embarrassed our people. This is football and sometimes these things happen. I know our people are sad and embarrassed and all we can do is apologize to them.