When the squad list was announced for Lebanon ahead of their clash against Malaysia, many were surprised at the omission of Mohammed Ghaddar’s name from the list.
Mohammed Ghaddar, a former star-striker with Kelantan FA who had just joined the Southern Tigers during the transfer window, apparently chose to pull out of the national team and decided not to play against Malaysia.
This was confirmed by Lebanon’s head coach Miodrag Radulovic at the pre-match press conference ahead of their clash against Malaysia.
Mohammed Ghaddar is in-form, and is also Malaysia Super League’s highest scorer with a whopping 18 goals to his name. He also scored in their previous international fixture against Hong Kong, where The Cedars won 2-0.
“Ghaddar chose not to play in this game. It’s his decision, so we have to move on and focus on the replacement.” Radulovic told the media at the press conference.
“When a player doesn’t want to play for the national team, there’s nothing much we can do besides moving forward.” he added.
When asked if Ghaddar would be back for future games, Radulovic stressed that it was not important to discuss about that right now.
Lebanon will face Malaysia at the Larkin Stadium tomorrow night for the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers fixture.
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