Brazilian goalkeeper makes history with the Palestine national team

“My relationship came from my family, who always supported and followed Palestine a lot. My story began with my grandfather who was born in Palestine, came to Brazil and met my grandmother. They got married in São Lourenço do Sul. It all started there”, says Diogo, in an interview with OneTwo Sports.

The possibility of playing for his grandfather’s country emerged through social media. Just over four years ago, the goalkeeper started following a page with sports information about Palestine. Through this profile, coach Sajed Karakra, who works in the national team’s youth categories, started interacting with Diogo until he started asking for images of the Brazilian’s games.

“It’s been about four years since I started following the Palestine information and games page. This page asked me if I had Palestinian origin. They asked me for documents to prove it. They made a post talking about my Palestinian origin and the coach of the under-20 team called me to ask for these documents. He managed to validate my origin”, explains Diogo.

“It was an immense happiness, I always wanted to defend the Palestine team. It was also a source of pride for my whole family. It was just joy”highlights the Azuriz goalkeeper.

War in the Middle East postpones goalkeeper’s dream

Diego Samara was called up for a week of training in Qatar and a friendly tournament in Kuwait. However, the start of the war in Iran, which had repercussions in other countries in the Middle East, postponed the plans indefinitely. With this, the goalkeeper waits for the end of the conflicts to make his dream come true.

“I was going to travel on March 12th and spend a week in Qatar and two weeks of games in Kuwait. But with the war, they ended up postponing it and there is still no scheduled date. They are passing on information to the group about when they think it will be”, says the Brazilian.

While waiting to defend Palestine, Diogo Samara is working to debut for Azuriz in Series D of the Brazilian Championship. “It’s a very good opportunity as it is a training club and invests in young people. Series D is also an important championship and has a year-round calendar. There is still Paranaense and the Copa do Brasil next year”, he concludes.