Meloni and Oliveira…a surprise on the “White” list

The Portuguese national football team coach, Paulo Bento, summoned the Sharjah and Al Jazira duo, Marcos Meloni and Bruno Oliveira, to the “white” list that he chose to play the matches between North Korea and Uzbekistan scheduled for October 10 and 15, as part of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, in A time when Montpellier’s French player, Junior Ndiaye, was excluded for technical reasons.

The Portuguese coach kept Fleetwood’s English midfielder Mackenzie Hunt and Southampton’s English goalkeeper Adly Mohamed.

The list announced by the Football Association yesterday included 25 players: Khaled Issa, Khaled Tawhid, Ali Khasif, Adly Muhammad (goalkeeper), Muhammad Al-Attas, Khamis Al-Mansouri, Kwame, Khalifa Al-Hammadi, Zayed Sultan, Khaled Al-Dhanhani, Abdul-Rahman Saleh, and Abdullah. Idris (defense), Ali Salmin, Yahya Nader, Mackenzie Hunt, Abdullah Hamad, Tahnoon Al Zaabi, Issam Fayez, Marcos Meloni, Yahya Al Ghassani, Hareb Abdullah, Ali Saleh, Fabio Lima (midfield), Caio Canedo, and Bruno Oliveira (attack).

The team is scheduled to gather tomorrow on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, where it will train for two days before transferring its training to the city of Al Ain, where it will perform its final training session, before facing North Korea next Thursday, at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium, while it will meet the Uzbekistan national team on the 15th. From the same month.

The national team occupies third place in the first group standings with three points obtained from defeating its host Qatar national team 3-1 in the first round of the qualifiers, then losing to its guest Iran national team 0-1 in the second round, while the national teams of Uzbekistan and Iran occupy first and second places. In order, with six points each, North Korea and Qatar are in fourth and fifth place with one point each, and the Kyrgyzstan team is in last place without points.

• Pinto keeps Mackenzie Hunt and Adly Mohamed and excludes Junior Ndiaye.