Football finds a way, even in fractured Palestine

SINGAPORE - Decades of war, occupation, and political unrest have plagued Palestine but against all the odds, football has somehow found a way to thrive.

Even having the national team turn up in Singapore for their World Cup qualifying match at the Jalan Besar Stadium on Tuesday (Sept 10) is already considered a feat, as the two sides' Asian Cup qualifier in 2007 was cancelled due to travel difficulties faced by the Palestinians.

Despite the setbacks, Palestine have qualified for the last two editions of the Asian Cup in 2015 and 2019, and its Under-23 squad reached the quarter-finals of the AFC U-23 championship last year.

Head coach Noureddine Ould Ali, an Algerian who first worked with the Palestinian Football Association in 2010 before taking the reins of the senior team last year, said their recent rise is down to "big effort" by the association's president, retired general Jibril Rajoub.

Football in Palestine, though, is inextricably linked with politics. There are still challenges when it comes to overseas travel as the team has to cross five borders to leave and return via Jordan, resulting in a 20-hour journey to Singapore.

And because of Israel's occupation of Gaza, there are two major football leagues in Palestine: the professional West Bank Premier League and the semi-pro Gaza Strip Premier League.

Ali said: "We can't have only one league because we have problems moving between these two areas. Palestine is a very complicated situation. And football in Palestine is also very complicated.

"If you (focus) on the situation and not the football, you would kill yourself. So that's what I do. Just focus on the football."

Another factor in the team's current rise is the emergence and inclusion of overseas players with Palestinian roots. There are about 20 of them in Spain, Chile and the United States, among other nations, said Ali.

United States-born midfielder Nazmi Albadawi is one of them. The 27-year-old, who was born in North Carolina and has featured in Major League Soccer for FC Cincinnati, made his international debut last November in a friendly match against Pakistan in Ramallah, and scored the winner in their 2-1 victory.

He said he received an invitation to join the Palestinian team a few years earlier but the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict - which spanned seven weeks and left 2,251 dead, according to the United Nations Human Rights Report - made his family uneasy.

Nazmi's debut was the first time he set foot in Palestine and he said: "Where we are is very safe. I think where (the challenges) start to be a little bit more evident is after the game or when we have an away game.

"Those of us from outside the country take a different way to the players that have (Palestinian) passports, because they have to go through more checkpoints and it's more complicated for them.

"That's one of the main things I noticed in my first time there - how much different, and more difficult at times, it is for those players. It's a little bit sad, but all we can do is focus on is our playing.

Palestine's footballers have already claimed one scalp in their World Cup qualifying campaign as they defeated an Uzbekistan side (2-0) ranked 18 places above them in Ramallah last Thursday. Singapore can expect a tough challenge at the Jalan Besar Stadium as the Palestinians will be on the hunt for another victory on Tuesday.

Nazmi added: "They're warriors - we all are - and we're going to fight for each other and hopefully get good results together."