The current Bahrain futsal team contains some outstanding players and may pull off a few surprises in the upcoming 2022 AFC Futsal Asian Cup for which it has qualified for the third consecutive time since 2018, the team manager said yesterday.
“This side is probably the strongest we’ve ever fielded,” Raed Baba, who previously also captained the team, told the GDN by phone from Fujaira in the UAE after Bahrain drew their last group match with Iraq in the three-team West Zone Group B Asian Cup qualifying round to finish second on the table. “We are confident that we will be able to pull off a few surprises and cause some upsets in the Asian Cup.”
The team had already qualified for the Asian Cup, which will be hosted by Kuwait in September, a day earlier by beating the formidable UAE side, who were relegated to third place because they had also lost their opening game, 0-2, against eventual table-toppers, Iraq.
The UAE could still make it to Kuwait, though, if they win a play-off today against Oman, who finished third in West Zone Group A, behind Lebanon and Saudi Arabia and ahead of fourth-placed Palestine.
“We were keen on beating Iraq too and we could have done so, if not for some fluffed chances,” Baba said of the match which ended in a 1-1 tie, allowing Iraq to sneak ahead of Bahrain on goal difference after both teams finished level on points. “But we’re very happy to have qualified for the third consecutive time and we hope to improve on our performance from 2018, when we reached the quarter-final and lost 2-0 to a very strong Japan team.”
This is the fourth time overall that Bahrain have qualified for the Asian Cup, with their first appearance in 2002 ending in a first-round exit. The 2020 edition, delayed several times because of Covid-19, was eventually cancelled with designated hosts, Kuwait retaining hosting rights for the 2022 competition.
An association football-based sport, futsal is mainly played indoors between two teams of five players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper, on a hard court which is smaller than a football pitch. The surface and rules favour ball control and passing in small spaces with a smaller, harder, low-bounce ball than football. The sport was invented in Uruguay in 1930 by a teacher who wanted to create a team game, similar to football, which could be played indoors or outdoors.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) organises the Asian Cup, previously known as the AFC Futsal Championship, which was first played in 1999 and held annually until 2008. Since then, it has been organised after every two years. Iran and Japan have dominated the tournament, with Iran having won 12 of the 15 editions held thus far, with Japan winning the other three.
The 16-team tournament also serves as a qualifying round for the Fifa Futsal World Cup, with the top five teams going through to the global event.
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