Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – Alia Abu El Hawa, a rising senior from Vienna, Virginia, spent last week playing with the Jordanian National Team in the Asia Cup, a tournament that was the final stage of Asian qualifications for the 2019 FIFA's World Cup. Unfortunately, after dropping three matches against China, Thailand and the Philippines, the Jordanian team was not able to qualify for the 2019 World Cup, but Abu El Hawa plans to take the experience she learned during international play to move her game to another level for the upcoming season.
"I think playing against the best of the best teams is really going to help, just me seeing how other teams play and how to adjust and figure out problems with new a team," Abu El Hawa said. "It made me think more than my games at Tech because these girls have been playing with each other for years and they know everything about each other, and trying to break them down with a new team kind of taught me a lot."
Abu El Hawa, who has played 51 matches for the Hokies with 47 starts, also gained the experience of playing at a position different from her regular role as a defender. She worked with the Jordanian team as a midfielder.
"It was awesome," she said. "We played against a lot of really hard teams, which challenged me, playing against hard teams, and I played a position that I had never played before. I played … the number is a six, and it's a holding midfield."
For most women across the world when they are called up to their national team, they are met with overall excitement by their countries. In Jordan, where an overwhelming amount of the population is Muslim, it can be sometimes hard to find support, but there wasn't as little support as one may think.
"It was awesome," Abu El Hawa said. "Girls playing sports, for Muslim women, is rare. We're usually considered having to go cook and clean and not play sports. It was awesome seeing these girls, how good they are and how they grew up playing soccer with all backlash of their families, media and the public."
"Surprisingly we had over 10,000 people at our first game, then 6,000 at our second game and then 5,000 at the third game. The support was insane. There were so many signs empowering women. Even though we lost all of the games, everyone was so proud of us."
Though this was a great opportunity, it was not one that she necessarily saw coming.
"I didn't know I was going to get this call. It was literally my junior year." she said. "I didn't know I was going to get this call. I never knew that I was going to start every game."
She also had some words of wisdom to give to young soccer players who someday wish to compete on their national teams.
"Nothing is never off the table." she said. "Just always keep working hard, do extra before practice, and if you're really trying to get better, do it after as well. In the summer, you should be practicing every day, getting prepared. If you really want to be at a high level in soccer, you have to work on yourself and have to practice more than what everyone else is doing."