São Paulo – The Palestinian national female football team should arrive in São Paulo this week for a 15-day training session with the Santos Football Club professional female football team. This should be the first time that the team receives an Arab delegation at its training centre.
According to the ambassador of Palestine to Brasília, Ibrahim Azeben, the request for practicing in Brazil was made by a player in the Palestinian team who had the opportunity to speak to the Brazilian Foreign minister, Celso Amorim, when he visited the Nativity church, in Bethlehem, in March this year. The minister was accompanying Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during his trip to the Middle East. "It was a blessed meeting,” said the ambassador.
The request by the player was forwarded by the minister to the general coordinator for sports exchange and cooperation at the Brazilian Foreign Office (Itamaraty), Vera Cintia Alvarez, who got in contact with Santos Football Club. According to Amauri do Nascimento, at the football club administration, the practices should take place twice a week from Monday to Friday. “They are going to live our practices,” said Nascimento.
Apart from the practices, to take place at the Meninos da Vila Training Centre, the teams are also going to practice on Santos beach. The programme has not yet been defined, but the team is interested in promoting a friendly game at Vila Belmiro, the club stadium.
According to a press statement disclosed by the embassy of Palestine to Brazil, the national team of the Arab country is very pleased with the opportunity. To celebrate the trip by the players, the Brazilian representative in Palestine promoted a farewell party. According to the director general for Foreign Affairs at the Foreign Ministry of Palestine, Monjed Saleh, the promotion of this practice season is the fruit of treaties signed between presidents Mahmoud Abbas and Lula, in March, which include an agreement in the sports area.
The director general also said that he hopes for this season in Brazil to be beneficial and to improve the technical level of the Palestinian players. At the farewell party, the director of the Palestinian female football team, Aida Al Tarif, gave a present to ambassador Ligia Maria Scherer, the head of the Brazilian representative office in Palestine, and said that the players were very pleased to participate in a practice session in Brazil, considered the nursery of football.
Santos Football Club
The club was established in April 1912 and became renowned with the arrival of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pelé, who assisted Santos in winning the Intercontinental Cup (1962/1963), and also winning the Libertadores da América Cup twice (1962/1963), among others. This year, Santos was the São Paulo State champion for the 18th time.
In the female football team, Santos is of global renown for player Marta Vieira da Silva, hired by the team last year. The striker won the gold medal with the Brazilian female football team at the Pan American games, in 2003, and the silver medal in the Athens Olympics, in 2004. Marta was elected the best player in the world by FIFA in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
*Translated by Mark Ament
