BAHRAIN’S senior men’s national team are scheduled to play three international friendly matches this month as a part of their final preparations for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup 2019.
The fixtures include a game against Tajikistan on December 20, a friendly against Lebanon on December 27 and another against North Korea on December 29.
These matches were confirmed during a meeting chaired by BFA Vice-President for Technical Affairs Shaikh Khalid bin Salman Al Khalifa.
Also at the meeting were senior men’s national team head coach Miroslav Soukup, team manager Aref Abdulrazak, udner-23 Olympic team head coach Samir Chammam and BFA Technical Affairs Department Head Abed Al Ansari.
The senior men’s national team will begin their final training programme for the AFC Asian Cup on December 10.
The AFC Asian Cup kicks off on January 5 in the UAE, and the Bahrainis are set to feature in the tournament-opening match against the host Emiratis that same evening.
The Olympic team is also set to play their own trio of friendly games. They are preparing for the qualifying competition of the 2020 AFC U-23 Championship. A group of those qualifiers is set to be held in Bahrain in March of next year.
The Olympic team’s first friendly will be against their counterparts from Jordan on January 4. They then take on the UAE Olympic team on January 9 and 14.