As off-seasons go, the one Nazmi Albadawi just plowed through could be best described as truncated. First the attacking midfielder was called up for Palestine, the homeland of his grandparents, and promptly scored on his debut. Not too many weeks afterward, Albadawi signed an MLS contract with FC Cincinnati after an impressive season in the team’s final lower-league campaign before they joined the US top-flight this year. To top it off, he then had to dash home to North Carolina during Palestine’s warm-ups for January’s Asian Cup: he was getting married.

“It was the best off-season of my life – my wedding was the best day of my life,” he says. And of the footballing step-up ahead: “Being in training camp in Qatar and the Asian Cup in Dubai I think was the best preparation I could have for my first MLS season.”

Those frenetic weeks also brought Albadawi into close proximity with Palestine’s thorny political backdrop, and the bureaucratic challenges that accompany the national team. His first insight into those complexities came after his goalscoring debut in a 2-1 win against Pakistan in Palestine in November. A few days later, with the team due to play away to China, he was part of a diaspora contingent with foreign passports forced to travel separately to the Palestine-based players whose local travel papers mean added red tape. “It’s difficult for them to get in and out,” Albadawi says. “Seeing what they go through put a lot of things into perspective for me. I’m very lucky to have been born [in the US], to live here but I’m also very proud to be Palestinian, to represent Palestine.”

On the pitch, off-field turmoil leads to greater unity, Albadawi says. “It brings us closer together. We’ve all been through hardships, especially the guys from Palestine. A few of the guys have been in jail.”

For Albadawi’s family, the road out was winding and tracked by politics and war. Both sets of his grandparents left the then British mandate of Palestine in 1938, a tumultuous time in the days before Israeli statehood, with his father’s family leaving behind their hometown of Tarshiha, now located in northern Israel and known as Ma’alot-Tarshiha. Both sides of his family ended up in Kuwait – his father’s family via Qatar – before a Saddam Hussein-controlled Iraq invaded the country in 1990. That’s when Albadawi’s family fled to the US.

“They got a phone call one night saying if they want to come to the US you have four hours, you can bring one bag, be at the airport,” Albadawi says. “So my family packed one bag, got to the airport and they flew to Raleigh, North Carolina. They were on the plane with about 20 to 30 other families. What’s pretty funny is none of my best friends were born at the time, but all of their families were on that plane as well. So Raleigh is where I was born and raised.”

The tough journey endured by his parents adds weight to the simple motion of pulling on the Palestine national team shirt. “It means a lot to them,” Albadawi explains. “It was pretty cool because they were able to come to Dubai and watch me in the Asian Cup. For my parents to see all the crowd and see all the Palestinian people, I think my mom almost started crying from all the emotions. My dad loved it as well – that for me was really special, seeing what it meant not only to my parents but to all the Palestinian people over there.”

Thoughts now are on club concerns and a first-ever MLS campaign for the 27-year-old Albadawi. FC Cincinnati, who lost their opening game 4-1 with a line-up that did not feature Albadawi, have a number of players making the step up from the lower leagues to MLS. It perhaps doesn’t help that Albadawi, an attacking midfielder, exists in a competitive part of the field that in MLS tends to attract heavy investment in South American and European talent. He takes a pragmatic view of the task ahead and sees himself adaptable enough to play in most midfield positions outside his usual role as an offensive fulcrum, whether out wide or in a box-to-box role.

“I’ve not been in MLS, this is my first time, but I don’t think that the difference between the top, top, top second-division players and most players in MLS is quite that big. I think it’s pretty similar, it’s a small gap. I think the designated players are the ones who really make the difference for the teams in MLS,” he says. “I think it’s about coming in with confidence, coming in with a coach who believes in you, and getting that opportunity to play. A lot of times, if guys don’t get the opportunity immediately they put their head down, they moan a little bit and it affects them even more.”

Albadawi has his own ideas: “But if you come in, keep a good mindset and know it’s going to be a grind again. Because if you’re coming from the second division, you’re playing every single game and being one of the better players. In MLS, it’s not going to be that scenario, especially at first. So come in, keep your head on your shoulders, keep working hard and know you’re going to need to earn your spot, that it’s not going to be like it was in the second division.”