Palestine is refused by the penalty at the end of Oman in a 1-1 draw which puts an end to their first appearance of the FIFA World Cup.
The historic qualification campaign of the Palestine Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the FIFA 2026 World Cup was finished with a late penalty from Oman in a 1-1 draw in his last group match.
Need a victory to reach the fourth round of the AFC qualifiers, Palestine led deeply in five minutes of injury time thanks to the goal of Oday Kharoub at the start of the second half.
The score would have been sufficient to propel Palestine after Oman in the fourth and last qualification place for group B of the third round of AFC qualifications – a stage that they had also reached for the first time.
However, a shirt tug on a runner chased a free kick of the deep was spotted by the referee of the video assistant (Var), and the dream of Palestine of a first appearance during a football world cup ended with the kick of Essam Al-Subhi in the 97th minute of the match.
The goal at the head of Kharoub came after a good first half for Palestine, in which Michel Termanini hit the bar with a head.
Wessam Ali had a second for Palestine excluded for a marginal offside, only a few moments after Harib al-Saadi of Oman saw the red for a second yellow after a fault on Hamed Hamdan in the 73rd minute.
The decisive moment has come, however, when Muhsen al-Ghassani clearly run in the box in order to reach a ball in the region. The seizure of Ahmed Taha to the runner was deemed illegal and the elimination kick was awarded against Palestine.
AFC Asian Cup of Palestine almost the spark for the dream of the World Cup
The race for the third round of the AFC World Cup qualifications for the first time followed the remarkable feat of Palestine to reach the direct elimination stages of the last AFC Asian Cup for the first time.
A first appearance in the world centerpiece of football was only one more turn until the drama superior to the King Abdullah II stadium in Amman, Jordan, where Palestine was forced to stage her home matches due to the War of Israel against Gaza.
The full -time whistle, and with him, anticipated wild celebration scenes were cruelly a few seconds from Palestine.
Instead, the tension that was built palpably in front of the referee calling for the end of the match turned to scenes of despair while tears sank on the cheeks of Palestine players, many of whom collapsed on the ground with disbelief.
Oman now joins Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Indonesia, who lost 6-0 against Japan earlier during the day, in the fourth qualifying round, from which two teams will join the six countries already qualified by the third qualifying round.
A final chance will be available for the third team from the fourth qualification cycle, while this nation will switch to the playoffs of Intercontinental FIFA in a last chance fair to align itself in next year’s final.
Australia has become the last team to confirm its automatic qualification from the third qualification cycle when they saw the challenge of Saudi Arabia for second place in group C with a 2-1 victory in Djeddah.
In addition to Australia – Japan, Iran, South Korea, Uzbekistan and Jordan, finished the two best ends of their group to reserve their place during the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The last two qualified for a World Cup for the first time.
