The Oman Football Association (OFA) launched the first integrated national women’s futsal team yesterday, during an event that was held in the presence of the Honorable Lujaina bin Mohsin Haider Darwish al Zaabi, Member of the Board of Directors of OFA and Chairperson of the Women’s Football Committee.
The inauguration also saw the attendance of other members of the board of directors. During the event, officials discussed the team’s main aims, how the team members were selecting through the last league championship competitions, the most important upcoming competitions, and the benefits of the women’s national team.
“Of course as most of us know, the ladies team is a very new development in the association. I mean this only happened [the formation of the Omani women’s football team] after the elections in August where I was elected to be a member of the board, representing Omani women’s sports…We are all very excited to go and represent Oman internationally very soon,” said Hon. Lujaina Darwish
The head coach of the Omani women’s football team, Maha Janoud, explained the formation of the team, saying that 42 teams were invited to play in the first Omani women’s football tournament that was recently held. Only 14 clubs showed up, and the committee sat down after the tournament to handpick the 18 players who showed the most potential.
“To reach competitive levels, players need a long time and they need to gain experience. This means that we will at least need to play friendly, and official matches, so that we can stand a chance against international players. As of today, we have not played any competitive matches abroad, so we still don’t know the level of our players, on a GCC level, Asian level, or an Arab level,” said the coach.
The newly-formed women’s team will be flying to Italy in the first week of June, for a camp, and from there, they will travel to Saudi Arabia, where they will play their first international match.
“Its a really exciting opportunity for our team,” said team member Hanan Al Ismaily.
“This is the first competitive national team that is moving forward internationally, so going to a place like Italy, where they already have established themselves as an internationally [competitive] country, we get to learn from people who are already competitive, so it’s a great learning opportunity for the first national team,” she added.
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