BAHRAIN’S senior men’s national football team and under-23 Olympic football team conclude their overseas training camps today in Portugal.
Both teams are preparing for upcoming competitions.
The senior squad, coached by Portuguese national Helio Sousa, had a friendly match on Friday against local outfit Clube Oriental de Lisboa. The Bahrainis won 2-0, with the goals being supplied by Ahmed Al Sherooqi and Sayed Hashim Isa.
The tune-up was the seventh of their camp. They had won four of those games, drawn two and lost once.
Clube Oriental de Lisboa are a team competing in the Campeonato de Portugal, which is the third-level football league in the country. It is the only semi-professional national league organised by the Portuguese Football Federation.
From their training camp, the senior Bahrainis will next be competing in this year’s West Asian Football Federation Championship, to be held in Iraq. The Bahrainis begin their campaign on August 4.
The nationals are also gearing up for the start of their qualification campaigns for both the 2022 Fifa World Cup and the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. They are already through to the second round of qualifying, which is being jointly held for both the World Cup and Asian Cup.
Meanwhile, the under-23 Bahrainis, coached by Tunisian Samir Ben Chammam, are gearing up for their campaign in the AFC U-23 Championship, which is scheduled to take place in January in Thailand. It will be the Bahrainis’ debut in the competition, which also acts as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifiers for the Tokyo Games.
The senior team had a squad of 28 players in their camp, while the Olympic team had 23.