Thursday, July 8, 2010

If there was an Arabian Peninsula National Team...

This post is kind of random, but every once in a while I wonder what kind of National Teams could be put together if you combined nations with similar cultures and geographic locations. I've done a combined USSR and a combined Yugoslavia in the past.

This is my attempt at putting together an Arabian Peninsula National Team. I'm not an expert on the region, so feel free to help me out if I missed any deserving players. I think this team would be a strong contender for one of the Asian World Cup Finals spots along with Japan, Australia, and South Korea.



Arabian Peninsula Includes:
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen

STARTING LINEUP

GK - Ali Al-Habsi (Oman; Bolton Wanderers, England)

LB - Salman Isa (Bahrain; Al-Arabi, Bahrain)

CB - Osama Hawsawi (Saudi Arabia; Al-Hilal, Saudi Arabia)

CB - Redha Tukar (Saudi Arabia; Al-Ittihad, Saudi Arabia)

RB - Hamad Al-Montashari (Saudi Arabia; Al-Ittihad, Saudi Arabia)

LM - Talal Al-Bloushi (Qatar; Al Sadd, Qatar)

CM - Mohammed Noor (Saudi Arabia; Al-Ittihad, Saudi Arabia)

CM - Fábio César (Qatar; Al-Rayyan, Qatar)

RM - Ahmed Hadid Al Mukhaini (Oman; Al-Ittihad, Saudi Arabia)

ST - Yasser Al-Qahtani (Saudi Arabia; Al-Hilal, Saudi Arabia)

ST - Sebastián Soria (Qatar; Qatar SC, Qatar)


BENCH

GK - Sayed Jaffer (Bahrain; Muharraq, Bahrain)

DF - Meshal Mubarak (Qatar; Al-Rayyan, Qatar)
DF - Majed Al Marshadi (Saudi Arabia; Al-Hilal, Saudi Arabia)

MF - Mohamed Salmeen (Bahrain; Dhafra, UAE)
MF - Mahmood Abdulrahaman (Bahrain; Al-Shamal SC, Qatar)

ST - Ismail Matar Al-Junaibi (UAE; Al-Wahda, UAE)
ST - Jaycee John Okwunwanne (Bahrain; Eskişehirspor, Turkey)

3 comments:

  1. Brilliant. This is the sort of thing I do when I have a spare five minutes at work. Glad to see I'm not the only one ;)

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  2. Jaycee John would actually be in the starting 11 without a doubt.

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  3. Thanks mirkobolesan, I'm also glad I'm not the only one, sometimes I wonder..

    Anonymous,
    For me Al-Qahtani was an automatic starter and the other forward position was between Jaycee John and Sebastian Soria.

    I haven't seen either of them play extensively so I went with the player with the better international goal scoring record (Soria 19 goals 47 games vs John 11 goals 43 games).

    I'm not all that familiar though so I could definitely be wrong about that. Thanks for the comment

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