Sameh Maraaba was one of the lucky ones – a Palestinian who had a bright future to look forward to in professional football. Then, one day in April 2014, his life and career came crashing down.
The midfielder, who faces the UAE in tomorrow’s World Cup qualifier in Al Ram, was detained by the Israeli Defence Force on his return to the West Bank with the Palestinian national team from a training camp in Qatar.
Maraaba, who plays for Hilal Al Quds Club in the West Bank Premier League, was held for eight months without charge under administrative detention, depriving him of what should have been some of the best moments of his career.
In May, the 23-year-old Maraaba missed the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup in the Maldives.
The competition, now discontinued, may have been established as a platform to give some of Asia’s lower-ranked teams a chance at glory, but last year’s edition brought with it a golden ticket to the 2015 Asian Cup for the winners.
Maraaba’s teammates won the competition, Ashraf Numan scoring a brilliant free kick to defeat the Philippines 1-0 in the final and book Palestine’s place alongside the continent’s elite for the first time.
January’s Asian Cup in Australia would have been the biggest occasion of his career, as it was for his teammates. Instead, the experience passed him by, possibly forever.
Maraaba’s story is not uncommon among Palestinian footballers. In 2012, having been detained with no charge for three years, Mahmoud Sarsak, then 25, went on a three-month hunger strike that eventually resulted in his release, but not before his body was rendered unfit for professional football.
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Many other Palestinian footballers traveling between the West Bank and Gaza are regularly stopped at checkpoints and turned away, causing them to miss matches.
Palestine may be one of the most-improved teams on the continent, but qualification for the 2019 Asian Cup in the UAE – never mind the 2018 World Cup – remains a tough task.
There is little guarantee that Maraaba will get to perform at the highest level in Asia again.
He is doing a fine job of making up for lost time. Having scored 10 goals in 14 appearances for Palestine’s age-groups teams, he finally got his chance at senior level as a late substitute in June’s 3-2 loss to Saudi Arabia.
But it was a few days later when he made his mark, scoring twice against Malaysia in a 6-0 win in Kuala Lumpur that gave Palestine their first three points of the campaign.
“I’ve been waiting for these qualifiers, as I wasn’t able to take part in the Challenge Cup or the Asian Cup,” Maraaba told the Fifa website this week.
“After getting nine minutes against Saudi Arabia, I was delighted to play a key role as part of the starting line-up. I play in midfield, but I always like to get into the box, which is something that the coach encourages me to do anyway.”
The goals he scored highlighted the versatility that makes him so valuable to a team that scored one goal in three group matches in Australia.
“For my first goal, I got myself into a good position and finished off a great team move, and I thank my teammates for that,” he said. “My second one was nice because no one was expecting me to head the ball from that distance or angle. I saw the goalkeeper hesitate and quickly decided to lob it over him.”
Tomorrow, he will hope to repeat his heroics in front of a passionate crowd on the occasion of Palestine’s first World Cup qualifier on home soil.
But the threat of detention remains ever-present for Maraaba.
In the build-up to June’s World Cup qualifiers, Maraaba was again detained at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan as the Palestine team headed to Tunisia for a training camp.
Fortunately, after three hours of questioning, he was allowed to rejoin his colleagues.
The incident took place only hours after Fifa president Sepp Blatter had met with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, hoping to avert a proposed vote to suspend Israel at the following week’s Fifa congress in Zurich.
Jibril Rajoub, the Palestine Football Association chief, had long complained over disruptions to Palestinian preparations and travel restrictions imposed on players.
However, in Zurich, Rajoub dropped the vote in return for concessions from the Israelis, including more freedom of movement for players in Gaza and the West Bank.
There was anger among some Palestinians at the late about-turn. Not surprisingly, both sides claimed victory in the outcome, but the reality is that Israel still holds the fate of the likes of Maraaba in its hands.
This story will run and run.
With tomorrow’s match against the UAE on his doorstep, Maraaba should take his place in Palestine’s starting 11, barring any late drama.
For 90 minutes, the only obstacle he will have to worry about will be the formidable one formed by Mohanad Salem and the rest of the Emirati defenders.
akhaled@thenational.ae
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