MUSCAT: A total of 29 probables have been called up by the head coach of Oman national football team, Branko Ivankovic, for the upcoming domestic and abroad camp in UAE from Monday and will run up to January 8, 2024.
The hopes were high that the coach would include Al Seeb’s striker Abdulaziz al Maqbali in the list, despite his top show with Al Seeb club recently in the Super Cup match where he scored hat-trick, But Al Maqbali was not among the selected faces in the recently declared squad, as well he had missed the previous national team camp last month in Muscat.
The announced squad were very similar to the previous one which excluded some few names including: Ahed al Hudaifi, Omar al Fazari, Khalid al Hajri and Sami al Hasani. The new names were added in the squad namely: Abdulaziz al Ghailani, Arshad al Alawi and Abdullah al Mushaifri.
The forthcoming preparatory external camp in UAE will feature two crucial friendly matches, first against China on December 29, and second against the UAE on January 6. These matches are set to shape the team’s readiness for the upcoming main assignments namely: 2024 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar next January and the Preliminary Joint Qualification (Round 2) for the Fifa World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027.
The training sessions will kick off on Monday at 7:00 pm at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex under supervision of Croatian coach, Branko Ivankovic. The local training camp will run for four days while on the fifth day on December 15, the national team players will travel to UAE for an abroad camp. Following the UAE camp, the national team delegation will travel to Doha city, Qatar to take part in the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023 which will take place during January 12 to February 10, 2024.
Oman will compete in Group F besides Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Kyrgyzstan teams. The national team will commence their opening match against Saudi Arabia on January 16 while they will take on Thailand on January 21. The concluding match will be against Kyrgyzstan on January 25.
OMAN PROBABLES:
Ahmed al Rawahi, Ibrahim al Mukhaini, Fayez al Rushaidi, Bilal al Balushi, Amjad al Harthy, Mahmoud al Mushaifri, Ahmed al Kaabi, Ali al Busaidy, Khalid al Buraiki, Ahmed al Khamisi, Abdulaziz al Ghailani, Mohammed al Amri, Ghanim al Habshi, Fahmi Dorbeen, Musab al Maamari, Tamim al Balushi, Harib al Saadi, Naser al Rawahi, Moutaz Abd Rabuh, Zaher al Aghbari, Abdulrahman al Mushaifri, Arshad al Alawi, Abdullah al Mushaifri, Salah al Yahyaei, Abdullah Fawaz, Jameel al Yahmadi, Mohsin al Ghassani, Omar al Malki and Esam al Subhi
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