An Austrian coach who's never been to Palestine and a businessman striker. In this final instalment of a two-part series, Moina Fauchier-Delavigne profiles a couple of unique members on the Palestine football team We are in Qalqilya in the West Bank in the office of Tayseer Amer -- a family import-export business. Amer works from 8 to 3, his hours spent behind a computer dealing with orders for the company's importing and selling of sewing thread from China to Jenin, Nablus and Israel. The atmosphere in his office on this morning is relaxed and friendly. Sitting in an office surrounded by hundreds of bobbins of every colour, Amer smiles warmly. He comes across as a gracious businessman, but he is much more than that. Amer is actually the most famous striker on the Palestinian national football team . During his best year, in 1999, he scored 45 goals for his local team in Qalqilya. Most of his teammates are from the Palestinian diaspora, but out of the six players who live in the occupied territories, he is the only one from the West Bank. Today, Palestine stands 129th out of approximately 202 in FIFA's world rankings, tied with Lesotho. Amer has lived all his life in Qalqilya, the closest town from Tel Aviv in the West Bank. It is situated exactly on the Green Line separating Palestine and Israel -- a town now totally encircled by an eight-metre-high concrete wall. The exit is a single gate. The 27-year-old football player was selected four years ago to play on the national side. Since then, he has played more than 20 international games, travelling with his team around the world. "I like to travel," Amer says, "but only for short periods. Last time I was away from home for 55 days, and I really didn't enjoy it. In such a situation, I spend all my money on phone calls. The $12 we get every day as pocket money disappear quickly. The whole team has trouble concentrating. It becomes hard to think about football, as we are worried about our children, our wives, our parents." Amer is married with two children. Things are not easy for the members of this team. Since 2000 and the second Intifada, the team is unable to train inside the country as the players from Gaza are not able to go to the West Bank and vice versa. So travel abroad is compulsory. "Previously, we would train a month in Gaza and a month in the West Bank," he says. With the team's focus now being on the 2006 World Cup, their only choice is to gather in Ismailia to train before each qualification game. Even "home" games have to take place on foreign turf. But for Amer the obstacles will not deter him. He has been playing since he was 10, when he began training with his local team. Recently, he was voted "the best player in Palestine" by PalSport magazine, his tremendous will power being described as almost palpable, as is his commitment to his nation and making its people better understood around the world. "What is most important today is that the people know that the Palestinians are alive, that we want to have a normal life, that we are pacifists not terrorists as the Israelis say and make us feel at each border [crossing]." Amer trains tenaciously alone every morning before he goes to work, in a field next to Palestine's only zoo, in a stadium whose walls are plastered with posters of martyrs and Yasser Arafat. When he trains, he says, he shuts all else out. "When I train I get to really concentrate on football, and then to rest properly, like the European players," he says. "It's easy for them; they get to wake up in the morning and they only think about football." But Amer's life has little in common with that of other international players of his level. He has to work given that the $300 monthly wage from the Palestinian Authority is not sufficient to support his family. "It comes down to a matter of concentration. One needs to separate the two things." He speaks with a serenity, seemingly accepting of the reality which makes his life. During the Intifada, the Israeli authorities imposed indefinite curfews on the town, leaving little time for the local team to train. But the players found a way. Amer recalls: "We would train during the few hours between curfews. And when they lasted too long we would arrange a meeting by phone with all the players from the team, and sneak into the field, avoiding the Israeli army." As well, he played with friends and neighbours in a schoolyard close to his house, something that lasted until the construction of the wall of separation. "You know how a journalist described this city?" he offers, taking a moment to pause. "The biggest prison in the world: We are 40,000 people living inside." He stops to contemplate. "It is hard to think of what will come later. There is no future here." But in terms of football, he has hope. "We are not at all the worst team from the Arab countries, even though we are under Israeli occupation. We can be really good. No country in such a situation could play football like we do." It has been a year since the separation wall was built. Qalqilya is now a strangely quiet city. Many shops are closed or empty. Their keepers don't seem to expect any clients; their backs remain to the doors as they watch television. In spite of all the hardships he endures along with his neighbours, Amer is far from bitter. And when Nicolas Hadwa Shahwan, the former team coach, offered him a place in a first-division club in Chile at the beginning of this year, he didn't even consider the possibility. "I felt it was too far," he says. "It takes two days to get there and my job is here, my family is here and my friends are here. My whole life is in Qalqilya." From now on, anyone who arrives late will not be accepted at the training," the tall, cap-adorning man calls from the centre of the pitch. "Three times and he can go back home." The heat of the sun is heavy on the Ismailia field in Egypt, and the atmosphere is serious. Austrian coach Alfred Riedl means business. "It's a challenge," he says. Riedl is responsible for the training of the Palestinian national football team, a post he did not accept without second thoughts. "When I was contacted, I didn't know too many things about Palestine, only what you can read in the newspapers, and not good things," he recalls. But after some cajoling, he took up the post, bringing with him coaching experience as head of the Vietnamese national team. The goal is Germany 2006: the World Cup. The challenge is great. After four games and two games left, Uzbekistan leads Asian zone Group Two wih 10 points. Iraq has eight points, Palestine four and Chinese Tapei nothing. "Just to gather the team represents a big challenge, as the players are from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and outside," Riedl says. "At the beginning of August, for example, a new player was supposed to come to Ismailia to join the team for the next match of the 2006 qualifications but he had a problem with his visa and had to return to the West Bank from Jordan." The recruitment of players from around the world has been a necessity. "We now have many players from around the world, because players from South America have more tactical knowledge and can position themselves better on the field." But Riedl has immense respect for the Palestinian players, describing those from Gaza and the West Bank as "little heroes". "They accept to be separated from wife and children for nothing, for peanuts," he says. Riedl has never been to Palestine, a fact he has been repeatedly asked about. "I had been in charge of the team for one month before I was asked on TV about why I had refused to go to Gaza. But I never refused to go. I had almost gone there to meet potential players for the team but the players instead went directly to Egypt for the selection process. Now everybody asks me why I haven't been to Palestine. "I am only a soccer coach; I don't want to be used as a political guy. Of course, I have my own ideas and I also speak out sometimes but not very much. Why should I?" he says pausing momentarily. "I do feel sympathy for the Palestinians but I am still Austrian." Regardless of the nation of origin, Riedl says his job is to help bring the players together in a unified spirit, and propel them to global ranks. "To get the team of Palestine united in real team work," he says of his aspirations.
