Palestine to face Catalonia in November
Match will be the second stop of an Iberian tour that will include a match against Euskadi in San Mamés
Football Palestine has learned that Palestine will contest two matches in November with an official friendly against Catalunya agreed by both parties. This match will follow the November 15th match up between Euskadi (Basque Country) and Palestine on the grounds of the San Mamés stadium in Bilbao.
An official announcement is expected this weekend with the Catalan Government’s Sports Minister, Berni Álvarez keen to host Palestine. There are a number of hurdles to still secure for the Catalans but it is expected that the friendly will be hosted on the grounds of the Olympic Stadium in Montjuic. The stadium was previously home to Espanyol and was used as a stand-in ground whilst FC Barcelona renovated the Camp Nou.
The hosts are confident of also being able to assemble a squad even though many Catalunya eligible players are likely to be with Spain on national team duty. Clubs are under no obligation to release players to the regional national team but when a team was assembled in May 2025 it was captained by Oriol Romeu and featured Joan Garcia in goal and Eric Garcia in defence.
This marks the first time Palestine have secured a full slate of friendly opponents in back-to-back windows in over two years. The last time Palestine played at least four matches in back-to-back windows was in 2023. The national team played Indonesia and China in June before facing Oman and Vietnam in September. That event broke a near five year streak of not fully utilizing international windows to play the most games possible.
The slate of friendlies this time around are all unofficial matches that will not count toward the FIFA Rankings. Algeria’s A’ results are not taken into consideration if the first team are playing during the same window. As for the November matches, Euskadi and Catalunya are not members of FIFA.
In spite of their unofficial nature, Palestine will be tested by a group of strong and experienced players ahead of a do-or-die Arab Cup play-in game against Libya, outside the FIFA window, on November 25th.