Bahrain will play table-toppers Oman today in a Group B game of the eight-nation Fourth West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) Men’s Futsal Championship in Kuwait that their coach says is an absolute must-win match.
Oman lead the group with three points after they beat the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 4-2 in their first match on Sunday. Bahrain and Lebanon are level on one point each after they drew their opening game 1-1 the same day.
“This game is like a final for us,” Bahrain head coach Lino Gomes told the GDN by phone from Kuwait yesterday. “It’s going to be a tough game but we just have to win. That is our only chance of qualifying for the semi-finals.”
Gomes, 48, whose futsal playing and coaching career spans more than four decades starting when he turned out in the under-9 category for a club in his native Brazil, has been with the Bahrain team since 2019. He was previously the head coach of the Kuwait national futsal team and, since his first coaching stint with a Brazilian club in the mid-1990s, has coached many club teams in both South America and Europe.
Oman, he said, would be high on confidence after their win over the UAE.
“Oman beat the UAE comfortably in their first game so they will be looking to win against us and seal their qualification for the semi-finals,” Gomes explained. “But that’s exactly what we want too! We had a good training session today and, despite missing some key personnel, we will give them a good fight and, hopefully, beat them and qualify.”
Gomes added that the Bahrain team would take the lessons learned from their first game against Lebanon on Sunday and apply them in the match today. Bahrain were seemingly poised to win that match after they entered the last minute of the 40-minute game, leading 1-0 but Lebanon managed to equalise and hold on for a draw after scoring a last-gasp goal with seconds left to play.
“This is a very important game for both teams,” Gomes stressed. “Oman are on a high after their win in the first match and we know they’ll come hard at us. And they know that even a draw will help their cause. We don’t have that luxury. We just have to win if we want to stay in contention for a place in the semi-finals.”
If Bahrain do manage to make it into the semi-finals, they will face any one of the four teams from Group A, which are Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and hosts Kuwait.
“We will do our best and try to qualify by beating Oman,” Gomes declared. “We know we can do it!”