Oman beach soccer team gearing up for upcoming events

MUSCAT, Jan 7  - The head coach of the national beach soccer team, Talib Hilal, affirmed that the team’s preparation plan will be reviewed by the national teams committee at the Oman Football Association (OFA). “We will have a meeting on Sunday with the committee to review the existing programme after the cancellation and postponement of many events including the 2020 Asian Beach Games which are supposed to take place in Sanya city, Hainan Island, China, next April and the GCC Games in Kuwait which shifted from April to December,” he added in his statement to Oman Daily Observer. As per the planned preparatory schedule, the Sultanate soccer team will have their fourth domestic camp from January 10 to 14 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Muscat. “The warm up plan also featured an external camp in Iran during February including some friendly matches against the Iranian team. The image is not clear yet but I hope to proceed further with the existing preparatory plan as we have to maintain the progress of player’s fitness level,” he said. Despite the postponement of the Asian and GCC Games, the national beach soccer team is gearing up to take part at the GCC beach soccer cup in Bahrain on February 17 until 23. Hilal Talib’s men will participate at the AFC Beach Soccer Championship 2021 finals which will take place in Thailand in April. The Asian event also acts as the qualification route for Asian nations to the upcoming edition of the Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup in Russia from August 19 to 29. The Sultanate’s beach soccer team had impressed in the last edition of the global showpiece event at Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup in Paraguay in December. It was the third participation of the team at the world’s high-profile beach soccer tournament which had registered a crucial win for Oman against Nigeria. The national team had suffered two losses against Portugal and Brazil. During the previous internal gathering of the beach soccer team, the fitness coach Ricardo De Silva had supervised on the fitness part besides the different sessions on physical and tactical sides led by the head coach. The list of the team players who took part in the camp included: Khalid al Oraimi, Mishal al Oraimi, Munther al Oraimi, Yahya al Oraimi, Jalal al Sinani, Nouh al Zadjali, Abdullah al Souti, Abdulaziz al Raqadi, Salim al Oraimi, Abdullah al Balushi, Amjad al Hamdani, Shareef al Balushi, Younis al Oaisi, Sami al Balushi and Eid al Farsi. Adil Al Balushi