BAHRAIN concluded their preparations for the qualifying match of the 2019 Asia Cup to be held in the UAE as they face Singapore today at 7pm at the National Stadium in Riffa, writes MAZIN RIZK.
Bahrain will hope to put in a top performance to be able to qualify for the tournament after cruising out of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers earlier on the season.
Bahrain’s Czech coach Miroslav Soukup had called up 24 players to attend a training camp which started last week to prepare for the encounter.
However, he will have to do without two of these players as Al Hidd’s Abdulwahab Al Malood and Malkiya’s Essa Abdulwahab suffered injuries. His absence leaves Soukup with only 22 players to choose from.
Apart from daily training sessions at the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) pitches in Riffa, the team had also played a friendly match last Thursday against Tajikistan.
The match saw Bahrain concede an early goal and missed crucial chances during the first half which could have seen them level the score. They finally levelled the score in the dying minutes through Kameel Al Aswad, who took advantage of Tajikistan’s defensive error to volley the ball into the back of the net.
Bahrain and Singapore are joined in Group ‘E’ by Turkmenistan and Chinese Taipei.
The top two teams from a total of six groups will qualify for the 2019 Asia Cup to join 12 teams which have already gained qualification in the earlier stages.
The competition will be contested by a total of 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format that had been used since 2004.
Bahrain’s best ever finish in the Asia Cup came in the 2004 edition hosted in China finishing in fourth place after losing to Iran 4-2 in the third-place playoffs.
Bahrain’s striker Alaa Hubail also managed to tie with Iran’s Ali Karimi for the top scorer award scoring five goals each.
The squad: Sayed Jaffar, Abdulla Abdo, Ismail Abdullatif, Hesham Mansour (Muharraq), Essa Moosa, Essa Ghaleb, Ali Habib (Manama), Abou Bakr Ada, (Al Orouba KSA), Abdulla Youssef (East Riffa), Ali Madan (Al Shabab), Mohammed Al Rumaihi, Kameel Al Aswad, Sayed Dhea, Sayed Saeed (Riffa), Ahmed Gomaa, Ibrahim Ahmed (Al Ahly), Mohsin Ali, Mahdi Abduljabar (Ittihad), Ali Khalil, Ahmed Abdulla (Al Najma), Redha Essa, Abdulkarim Fardan (Malkiya).