Football fans in Bahrain will get the chance to see some of the world’s top players in action when the national team take on Serbia tonight in a friendly game at the Muharraq Stadium.
The Serbian team arrived in the kingdom on Wednesday on an Air Serbia plane bearing the name of tennis great Novak Djokovic (the airline has named its aircraft after the country’s most famous personalities as part of its ‘Serbian Living Legends’ programme).
Head coach Dragan Stojkovic’s side will use the encounter to acclimatise to Middle Eastern conditions ahead of their first Fifa World Cup 2022 Group G match against Brazil next Tuesday.
Drawn in a tough group, with Switzerland and Cameroon also in the mix, Serbia will not risk playing three key players – Aleksandar Mitrovic, Filip Kostic and Sasa Lukic, all of whom are struggling with injuries – tonight, Stojkovic told reporters yesterday in a Press conference at Muharraq Stadium, ahead of the team’s training session.
Earlier, Stojkovic had prefaced his reply to the first question of the evening by expressing his gratitude to the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) and the Bahraini people for the warm, friendly welcome his squad had received.
And he said he had a healthy respect for the Bahrain team.
“I respect the quality of the team,” Stojkovic explained. “They are made up of players from the domestic league and I expect them to put up a good show.
“I just hope that everyone will keep in mind that this is a friendly match. I hope that we won’t see any injuries. That’s the most important thing for us. That’s why most of the players will not spend all 90 minutes on the field.”
But, when the match is underway, Stojkovic added, Serbia would play according to their normal, offensive style.
Captain Dusan Tadic, who sat to Stojkovic’s right, agreed.
“Our expectation is to win the match,” he said. “We are focused and ready.”
Meanwhile, this will be the fourth international friendly for Bahrain in less than two months and head coach Helio Sousa said playing against top-quality sides was standing his team in good stead.
“Playing against strong teams is good for us,” he explained. “We are growing, becoming stronger. We are becoming capable of challenging high-calibre teams and we have the capacity to become an even stronger team as we continue to play more matches against top international outfits.”
Bahran midfielder Abdulwahab Al Malood, who had accompanied Sousa to the Press conference, added that the game against Serbia – and the three against Cape Verde, Panama and Canada since September – had given his team the opportunity to develop.
“We don’t get the chance to play regularly against international teams so matches like these allow us the opportunity to test ourselves out against top-quality sides,” he said. “Serbia are in the World Cup and playing against them is going to help our progress.”
Although Bahrain acquitted themselves well without achieving any success in the first two encounters against Cape Verde (losing 2-1) and Panama (losing 2-0), they gave Canada – who are in Group F of the World Cup, after qualifying for the tournament for only the second time in history – a real scare just last Friday, when the hosts led 2-1 before the visitors managed to equalise and hang on for a draw.
The kingdom’s men will be hoping to improve upon that performance when the match gets underway at 6.30pm.
&uuid=(email))