Maziya Sports and Recreation have signed Palestinian national team midfielder Jonathan Cantillana.

The 32-year-old midfielder joined Maziya yesterday. Cantillana is a midfielder for the Palestinian national team, but he was born in Chile. Cantillana, who also spent his youth career in Chile, played for Palestine. Cantillana has since played for Malaysian First Division, Palestinian and Indonesian First Division clubs.

Cantillana has made 30 appearances for the Palestinian national team, scoring 10 goals.

Maziya is currently training for the AFC Challenge League with new coach Dragan Dukanovic and are in the same group as Kyrgyzstan champions Abdish- Arta Kant, last year's Kuwait League runners-up Al-Arabi and Turkmenistan champion Arkadag.

Teams will compete in two halves in the Challenge League. They are from the West Region and the East Region. The West Region includes Maziya and has three groups.

A total of six teams will compete in two groups in the East Region. The first and second place winners of the two groups in the East Region will qualify for the quarter-finals while the winners of the West Region will qualify for the quarter-finals.

Then the remaining slot will go to the West Region with the best result and the second team in the group. The final slot will be determined by the results of the second teams in the three groups in the West Region.

The AFC has decided to centralize the hosting of the matches in both regions. Therefore, the group matches will be played centrally in Kuwait. The group stage matches are scheduled for October 26, 29 and November 1.