MUSCAT — The Oman Football Association voiced full support and co-operation to national coach Julio Cesar Ribas despite the defeat against Bahrain in the home match of the World Cup qualifier recently. “I on behalf of the OFA board would like to mention that we had done a good post-mortem of our team’s performance against Bahrain, and are positively looking ahead for the next match,” said Taha Al Khisry, the OFA general secretary.

“Winning and losing is part of the game and its time now to forget the past and think ahead,” he said adding that the coach and his team will continue with their efforts to ring in the improvement needed before facingThailand in Bangkok on March 26. “We (the board members and the coaching staff) in fact were together analysing the video of the Oman-Bahrain match and also the friendlies prior to that and the coach had pointed out to some glaring referee errors against Oman,” said Taha.

“However, it doesn’t mean that we did well. There were serious flaws in our team as well and we have identified most of them and work towards nullifying the mistakes.” Meanwhile, he also confirmed two friendlies for the Oman national squad. “The locally-based national probables will play against Yemen on March 15, while the professionals will return for a full-strength team against UAE on March 19. The finalised team will leave for Bangkok on March 20,” said Taha. The OFA also held a meeting with regards to the participation of Sur Club and Al Nahda Club in the forthcoming AFC Clubs Cup 2008. The meeting was also attended by Talal Al Amri, the head of the competitions committee, technical adviser Abdulraheem Al Hajri and Mubarak Ahmed. During the meeting OFA offered full support to the clubs. The OFA general secretary also confirmed meeting of general secretaries of the national AGCC boards with reference to the 2009 Gulf Cup. The meeting will be held at the Grand Hyatt Muscat on Saturday. All the heads of the participating nations including Iraq and Yemen will attend the meeting.

Meanwhile, the OFA will organise a workshop for the First Division league clubs on Monday, February 18 and the main agenda will focus on the next season’s league format.