KARACHI: The two-match Pakistan-Palestine football series has been reduced to just one friendly, an official of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) said on Thursday.

Originally, Pakistan and Palestine were scheduled to play two matches on Sunday (Oct 12) and Monday (Oct 14) but PFF secretary Col Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi told Dawn that the series had been reduced to just one match.

“There will be just one match and that will be held on Oct 12,” Lodhi said, adding that the Palestine team was due to “arrive in Pakistan on Friday” from India.

The reduction in the series came as Palestine were falling foul on FIFA’s international friendly regulations, which states a country cannot play more than two international friendlies in a FIFA window, which in this case is Oct 6-14.

Had they played the second match, they would’ve played three games in the window along with their 3-2 win over India on Monday. Palestine also had to cancel their second match against India, scheduled for Oct 9.

Lodhi said that the PFF, which will host Palestine at Lahore’s Punjab Stadium in their first international friendly since February, had not sought compensation for the cancellation of the second match.

“There was no need to seek compensation because in the end there could’ve been an exhibition match which would’ve had no bearing,” he said.

Pakistan need a good result against Palestine as the lack of friendly matches have seen the national side slide down to 175th spot in the FIFA rankings. Their last international friendly saw them lose 3-1 to Lebanon in February.

Pakistan featured in the Al Nakba Cup in May — which saw them face Palestine, Sri Lanka and Jordan — while they also played matches against Indonesia in June and India (2) in August but as those games involved the U-23 side, they were not taken into account by FIFA’s ranking system.

At the Al Nakba Cup, Pakistan beat Sri Lanka 3-0 before losing to Jordan 1-0. In their final match, they were humbled 3-0 by Palestine.

Pakistan lost 4-0 to the Indonesians but their tour of India ended in high spirits with a 2-0 win over the hosts in the second match having lost the first 1-0 in Bangalore.

Pakistan’s U-23 side is again expected to feature against the Palestinians and they come into the match on back of narrow defeats at the Asian Games last month.

Pakistan lost 2-0 to eventual silver medallists North Korea and 1-0 to China to crash out at the group stage of Asia’s Olympic-size spectacle held in the South Korean city of Incheon.

Palestine, also featuring in the games, advanced from their section only to be hammered 4-0 by Japan in the knockout round.

Saeb Jendeya’s side bounced back from that defeat by beating India in Siliguri when they came back from 2-1 down in the first-half to win 3-2 on Monday.

Formerly Palestine’s assistant coach, Jendeya took over at the helm ahead of the Asian Games last month after head-coach Jamal Mahmoud quit the side after a three-year spell in-charge in which he’d helped the team qualify for next year’s AFC Cup.

And the matches against Pakistan and India were arranged by Palestine Football Association (PFA) to help them prepare for Asia’s top international competition, set to be held in Australia.

“We’ve qualified for the Asian Cup and that’s a huge achievement for us,” Jendeya said ahead of his side’s match against India. These are preparatory matches for us and we will try to utilise as many players as possible.”

Palestine last came to Pakistan in 2011 with the teams playing two mat­ches, one in Lahore and the other in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2014