Muscat, March 20 -
Oman national football team ended the first preparatory friendly match against Jordan in a goalless draw.
The match, which was held at Maktoom bin Rashid Stadium on Saturday, was part of the Red Warriors’ external camp underway in Dubai.
Another preparatory match is set and scheduled for the Sultanate team against India on Thursday at the same venue. The overseas camp in Dubai is part of team’s gearing up to the joint qualifiers of World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023. After the India match, the team will end Dubai camp and travel back to Muscat.
It was the first international match under supervision of the Croatian coach, Branko Ivankovic, the head coach of the national football team, who was appointed as head coach in January last year.
The Red Warriors entered the warm-up match after an absence of international matches since more than one year due to the ongoing pandemic. Oman team players delivered a technically sound game defending and attacking well despite the goalless draw result.
Many new faces took part in the match including Ahmed al Khamisi, Juma al Habsi and Amjad al Harthi due to an absences of many players including Mohammed al Musalami as he is suffering injury and is currently undergoing recovery treatment.
Branko began the match with Fayez al Rushaidi as goalkeeper. Abdulaziz al Ghilani, Ahmed al Khamisi, Juma al Habsi and Amjad al Harthi in the defending line.
Harib al Saadi, Abdullah Fawaz, Ali al Busaidi and Mohsin Jawher in the middle while Mohsin al Ghassani and Abdulaziz al Maqbali in attack. The Sultanate’s players organised a series of attacks that never threatened the Jordan’s goalkeeper Ahmed Abdul Sattar.
Mohsin Jawher commenced Oman’s initial attempts towards Jordan side but the opponent’s defending line broke the experiment. Ahmed Sameer and Mahmood Mardhi were the top players who created many disturbances in Oman defending zone but Abdulaziz al Ghilani and his team-mates and behind them Fayez broke all their scoring attacks.
As expected in the second half, the Croatian coach did many substitutions to test more players as Salah al Yahyai and Zahir al Aghbari replaced Abdulaziz al Maqbali and Mohsin al Ghassani.
After his entrance immediately, Al Aghbari was very close to score the opening goal as he received a golden pass from Ali al Busaidi but his shout went above the net in the 66th minute.
The opponent team, Jordan, were the better side in the second half as they had many scoring attempts through Ahmed al Erssan but they were saved by Fayez al Rushaidi. The dying minutes of the match did not see any further changes in the match final result which ended in a goalless draw but with many technical benefits for the coaching staff and both teams’ players.
Adil al Balushi
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