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DUBAI, United Arab emirates — It was by no means going to be straightforward for 10 soccer gamers from Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to tackle the likes of Brazilian legends Ricardo Kaká and Julio Cesar, Spain’s Carles Puyol and Robert Pires of France.
And with out the valiant efficiency of Emirati goalkeeper Waleed Salem, who threw himself round, sweating buckets, to cease ball after ball from getting into the web, the 12-4 consequence would have been far worse.
However the consequence was not the purpose of this hour-long soccer spectacle held on synthetic turf on the soon-to-close Dubai Expo within the United Arab Emirates.
Somewhat, it was a celebration of the true Abraham Accords, the normalization of ties brokered by the US between Israel and the opposite international locations making up the group of the identical title.
There have been ten gamers on the sphere at anybody time, watched by a number of hundred who had obtained tickets for the stands and scores extra glued to the fence between the pitch and the central boulevard of Dubai Expo.
The star-studded World Legends Group was made up of Kaká and Cesar from Brazil; Spain’s Puyol and Michel Salgado; Argentina’s Javier Saviola; Jay Jay Okocha of Nigeria; France’s Pires, Bacary Sanga, and Claude Makélélé; and Clarence Seedorf from Holland.
Israel was represented by Tal Ben Haim, whose father watched from the sidelines and whose many former groups embrace Chelsea and Manchester Metropolis; Salim Tuama, who has performed 13 instances for the Israel nationwide group; and Maor Buzaglo, who retired from the game in January, leaving his remaining membership, Hapoel Tel Aviv.
From the UAE got here Waleed Salem, Ahmad Hassan, Bakheet Saad, Basheer Saed, and Humaid Fakher. Abdulrahman Mubarak and Mamood Abdulrahman represented Bahrain. Morocco’s gamers needed to cancel as that they had a World Cup qualifying match.
Israel’s Buzaglo scored the primary purpose for the Abraham Accords group, with Tuama netting the subsequent two and the UAE’s Ahmad Hassan placing within the fourth. Pires scored 4 of the objectives for the World Legends Group.
The thought for the sport was hatched by US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, and rapidly adopted by the UAE, which organized the gamers.
Within the entrance row of the sport sat Nides, Israeli Tradition Minister Chili Tropper, UAE Minister of Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Enterprises Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Bahrain’s Minister of Sports activities and Youth Affairs Ayman bin Tawfiq Al-Moayed, and Morocco’s Minister of Tradition, Youth and Communication Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid.
The UAE’s Tradition and Youth Minister Noura al Kaabi, busy throughout the sport with company on the World Authorities Summit, going down in Dubai on the identical time, joined the festivities later at an occasion catered by cooks from the 4 collaborating international locations. There, the 4 tradition ministers signed a Joint Declaration on Tradition and Sport for Peace from which to launch further collaborations sooner or later.
The ministers additionally visited one another’s nationwide pavilions on the Dubai Expo.
Through the halftime break, Nides and Tropper took to the sphere for a knock-about, with Tropper taking pictures the ball previous Nides in purpose.
“I let Chili rating on me, I needed him to really feel good,” joked Nides. “I received’t get into hassle with the US,” retorted Tropper.
Nides, Tropper, and Noura al Kaabi all agreed that sport was a super bridge between cultures.
“It’s the people-to-people stuff that basically issues,” stated Nides. “Add this to the ministerial assembly we did (of overseas ministers from Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, Egypt, who met earlier this week for a landmark regional summit within the southern Negev Desert), “and it’s fairly one thing.”
“That’s how peace between peoples seems,” stated Tropper. “Peace agreements are just the start. I’m certain that is the beginning of an amazing friendship.”
“By way of tradition and humanities, issues transfer sooner than the rest,” stated al Kaabi, including that Israel and the UAE have been prospects for artist residencies and scholar scholarships. A memorandum of understanding has already been signed between the College of Haifa in northern Israel and Zayed College in Dubai.
However in a reminder that Israel’s relations with Palestinians are a far cry from these on present in Dubai, Nides took a minute out to tweet his condolences on listening to of Tuesday’s lethal terror assault in Bnei Brak wherein a Palestinian attacker killed 5 folks.
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