Olympic ambition looms for York City’s youth team twins Jassim and Khalid Alali

11:51am Saturday 21st August 2010

By Dave Flett

MANY footballers’ idea of the ideal summer break involves the odd cold beer and an inviting sandy beach.

For York City’s youth team twins Jassim and Khalid Alali, however, most of the close season was spent trying to catch the eye of the Jordan national team’s under-19 selectors.

And, having impressed during a three-week trial, both are now dreaming of representing their Jerusalem-born father’s country at the 2012 London Olympics.

Jordan have qualified for next year’s Asian Cup finals – the Middle East’s equivalent of the European Championships – for only the second time in their history, having previously reached the quarter-finals in 2004.

As a result, they are one of the favourites to secure a place at the Olympics from the Asian qualifiers for the U23 tournament, which gets under way next February.

Several members of Jordan’s U19 side have already been earmarked for Olympic selection and the Bishop Auckland-born brothers would love to be involved in England’s biggest sporting event.

Centre-back Khalid said: “It would mean the world to play in the Olympics and the standard of football would be very high.

“Everybody dreams of playing in the World Cup or the Olympics and to represent my dad’s country in the country where my mum was born would be amazing.”

With the authorities deciding against a Great Britain football team for 2012, there will be no question of divided loyalties for the siblings should they indeed realise their Olympic dreams.

But Jassim, who plays as a midfielder for the Minstermites, added that he would be proud to play for either country, saying: “It’s an ambition to play in the Olympics but then so is anything football related.

“Getting a contract at York City is a target, just like the Olympics and anything else that will improve me as a player. Representing your country at anything is great.

“I class myself as English and Jordanian so I would not have a problem playing for either.”

The Alali family are well known to the Jordan sports federation with elder sister Hala – a gymnast – having previously won a silver and two bronze medals at the Arab Games.

Jassim and Khalid also visited their father’s relations in between training with the national team.

The pair were put through their paces by former Manchester United academy coach Jonathan Hill, now Jordan’s youth technical director, while head technical director Mahmoud El-Gohary – a famous former Egyptian international who played club football in Germany – looked on from the sidelines.

About the overall experience, Jassim added: “It was a good standard. They are developing the game over there and putting a lot of money into it.

“The facilities are great and the coaches have good tactical awareness. The U19s are a very good side which is shown by the fact that some of them are in the national Olympic squad hoping to play at London 2012.

“Football is one of their main sports and the royal family are involved with Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, the federation’s president.”

For now, the 17-year-olds were deemed a little young to be considered for this year’s U20 World Cup qualifying campaign but their progress will be closely monitored with a view to future call-ups.

“The coaching staff said they were very happy for us to go over and train with them and that, hopefully, we can be involved again,” Jassim said.

“We were told we were technically good enough to be in the squad but just need to be a bit bigger and physically stronger as there were boys over there two years older than us now.

“It isn’t easy because of our York City commitments either but maybe, in a year or two, we will be ready.”

A grateful Khalid added: “International football is another step up from club football and it was a great experience to be training with good standard players and receive good quality coaching on top of what we enjoy at York. I’d like to thank York for giving us permission to go over there and the people in Jordan for their hospitality.”

City head of youth Steve Torpey felt the trip will have helped further both players’ football education, saying: “They are doing well and have a great attitude towards football and life in general so they went with my full blessing.”

Battle for top turns on three degrees

THERE is a three-way tie at the top of The Press Player of the Year standings two games into the new season.

Man-of-the-match awards for Alex Lawless and Michael Gash, against Kidderminster and Grimsby respectively, mean they share pole position with left-back James Meredith.

The Aussie defender was our second-highest rated player during last weekend’s 2-1 home defeat to Kiddy, picking up two points towards our contest.

He also collected a point as our third highest-rated player in Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at Grimsby behind Gash (three) and Michael Ingham (two).

Daniel Parslow, meanwhile, is also on the early leaderboard as last Saturday’s third-highest rated player.

The current Player of the Month leader is Meredith, who claimed the two bonus points towards that competition on offer to the player who polled most man-of-the-match votes from visitors to our website for the Kidderminster game.

That honour was shared by Gash and recalled midfielder Neil Barrett against Grimsby. The Press Player of the Year standings: Gash 3 points, Lawless 3, Meredith 3, Ingham 2, Parslow 1.

The Press Player of the Month standings: Meredith 5, Gash 4, Lawless 3, Ingham 2, Barrett 1, Parslow 1.