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Merge 104.8 | 25 May 2022
The Oman Football Association (OFA) launched the first integrated national women’s futsal team, under the patronage of the Member of the Board of Directors of OFA and Chairperson of the Women’s Football Committee, the Honorable Lujaina bin Mohsin Haider Darwish al Zaabi.
Other members of the board of directors also attended the inauguration, and a video was shown during the event discussing the team’s main aims, as well as how the team members were selected through the last league championship competitions. The video also discussed the most important upcoming competitions.
The Hon. Lujaina Darwish, and members of the team expressed how excited they were to see the first national Omani women’s football team compete internationally.
“We are all very excited to go and represent Oman internationally very soon,” said Hon. Lujaina Darwish.
The new women’s football team, which was formed after the Hon. Lujaina Darwsih was elected as a member of the board of the OFA back in August, will be flying to Italy in the first week of June for a camp. From there, the team will travel to Saudi Arabia, where they will play their first international match.
“Its a really exciting opportunity for our team. This is the first competitive national team that is moving forward internationally, so going to a place like Italy, where they already have established themselves as an internationally [competitive] country, we get to learn from people who are already competitive, so it’s a great learning opportunity for the first national team,” said team member Hanan Al Ismaily
The head coach of the Omani women’s football team, Maha Janoud, said that this international exposure, will help officials to better understand the level of the team and the individual players.
“To reach competitive levels, players need a long time and they need to gain experience. This means that we will at least need to play friendly, and official matches, so that we can stand a chance against international players. As of today, we have not played any competitive matches abroad, so we still don’t know the level of our players, on a GCC level, Asian level, or an Arab level,” said the coach.
In selecting the national team, the OFA invited 42 teams to play in the first Omani women’s football tournament that was recently held, but only 14 clubs showed up. From the teams that played, the committee handpicked the 18 players who showed the most potential, and coach Maha added that there will be a further cut, down to 14 players down the line.
