Palestine coach Naeem Swerky

GAZA: After a disappointing pull-out from the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers last month, Palestine have started preparing in earnest under new coach Naeem Swerky for August’s West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) Championship in Iran.

In order to get around the problem of the Israeli security blockade, which also led to the team withdrawing from the AFC Challenge Cup qualifying campaign, the Palestinian Football Federation has split the WAFF Championship probables into two groups who will undergo training in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.

Swerky, who took over as the head coach recently from Ghassan Balawi, has already started putting through their paces a pool of 27 players in Gaza but there is no word yet on the squad which is to train in the West Bank.

“We decided to depend on the same group of players who represented the national and Olympic teams in previous matches as a result of the lack of tournaments in Gaza,” Swerky told reporters.

The coach stressed that he would be concentrating on physical conditioning of his charges in the initial days before switching to technical aspects of the game during a training camp in Jordan before the WAFF Championship kicks off.

Seven teams – hosts Iran, Asian champions Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Bahrain and Qatar – will play in the championship over a period of two weeks from August 1-15. The draw takes place on July 1.