December 24th, 2023: This Week in Palestinian Football

With the Algeria camp now in the books the national team heads to Abha, Saudi Arabia for the second phase of Asian Cup preparations

You can almost taste it now. The Asian Cup is really around the corner and those with club commitments just have to make it through the year before joining up with the squad.

In fact, some teams have already announced their final tournament squads with Australia the first to do so followed by China and Malaysia. Half a dozen other countries have also announced preliminary squad that will be culled in the coming days.

That allowed us to gleam some added information about squad sizes. Initially, it was thought that squad sizes would not be increasing as they did for Euro 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

That decision has since been reversed with squad sizes now increasing to a whopping 26 players.

Algeria Camp comes to a close

All in all, Al-Fida’i’s time in Algeria can be considered a success as every outfield player got an opportunity to showcase his ability to the coaching staff.

The Olympic Team players will be buoyed by the fact that there are three extra spots on this team should the staff care to utilize them.

This past week’s real litmus test was the friendly against Algeria’s U23s which was full of positives as Palestine managed to control the tempo of the game and find an equalizer after going down a goal.

Zaid Qunbar has now scored three times in two warm up games which should ensure his presence in the final squad. Given the indifferent form of the preseumptive starter(s), Mahmoud Wadi and Saleh Chihadeh, he might even start Palestine’s first game against Iran.

The squad was also boosted by Camilo Saldaña- the projected starting left back- and Al-Ansar’s Hamza Hussein who was one of the stars of the Olympic Team this summer.

Ataa Jaber rehab continues