Defending champions Bahrain will face Kuwait tomorrow in their last Group B game of the eight-nation 25th Arabian Gulf Cup at the 65,000-seat Basra International Stadium in Iraq.
Bahrain, who won the Gulf Cup for the first time in 2019, lead the four-team group with six points from their two wins in two matches. A win, or even a draw, will ensure they enter the semi-finals as group leaders while a loss could potentially throw the race for the last-four stage wide open.
Ten-time champions Kuwait, who are tied on three points each with Qatar, would draw level with Bahrain if they win.
Likewise, if three-time tournament winners Qatar win their last game against the UAE, which will start at the same time at the Al Minaa Olympic Stadium, they will also finish the group-stage with six points, meaning that the question of which two teams out of the three will progress to the semi-finals will be answered by goal difference.
Bahrain head coach Helio Sousa said at a Press conference after Bahrain’s stunning, come-from-behind 2-1 win over Qatar on Tuesday night that his team would shut out all the noise and just concentrate on the game against Kuwait … with a sole focus on winning.
“We play to win every game,” he said. “And. each game has a different story. For example, our players were fantastic against Qatar. They displayed their character after being 1-0 down in the first half and full credit to them for taking Bahrain to a fantastic win, a deserved win.
“During the half-time interval, I just told them to back themselves and keep believing.
“I told them that I thought they had played really well in the first half and just had that one bad moment when the goal was scored by Qatar.
“All I did was keep them motivated and tell them that we could get back in the game.
“So that is what I will tell them about our upcoming game against Kuwait as well. They will need to maintain their focus and just concentrate on how they play.”
Sousa also explained why he changed the composition of the team in the game against Qatar with captain and goalkeeper Sayed Mohamed Jaffar rested along with several other players and Komail Al Aswad, who now has two goals in two matches, coming on as a substitute in the 60th minute and scoring the equaliser just 12 minutes later.
“We have a good mix of senior as well as young players, who don’t have much international match experience,” he said.
“The young ones need exposure to conditions in high-intensity international games which is why I rotated some personnel in and some out.
“They need to know we believe in them. And, the senior players are a big source of support for them.”
Sousa was in charge when Bahrain clinched the historic first Gulf Cup title by beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 in a pulsating 2019 final in Doha but he said the biggest credit he gives himself is the pride he feels about developing young talent and moulding the national squad into the well-knit, cohesive unit it has become.
“This means more to me than even winning the Gulf Cup, which was a huge achievement,” he explained. “This is the biggest medal I give myself as I look around this group and see the new talent we’ve found and the young players we’ve helped to develop.”
Turning to the crucial fixture against Kuwait tomorrow, Sousa said he had told his team to seek to stay the longest they could in the competition by taking their progress one match at a time.
“A short tournament like this is a difficult format for players,” he said. “Our game against Kuwait will be the third we will have played in six days. Playing three games in such a short span of time takes a heavy physical toll on the players.
“It’s not like this, even in the Fifa World Cup. But our players are fantastic, as I said earlier, and they have shown they are up for the challenge.
“We know what we need to do against Kuwait, our players are clued into our style of play and they make it very easy for the technical staff and I by adapting to whatever technical changes we suggest very quickly.
“That is why we keep on taking the right steps forward and I am confident that we will do well against Kuwait. Again, as I said earlier, we will play to win.”
The Bahrain-Kuwait match will start at 6pm, Bahrain time. The Qatar-UAE game will also start at the same time.
The third round of group-stage matches will start today with hosts and three-time champions, who lead Group A with four points, taking on Yemen, who have lost both their matches so far.
Two-time champions Oman, who also have four points but are in second place in the table because of goal difference, will face three-time winners Saudi Arabia, who have three points, in the other Group A match.
Both games will start at 6pm.
&uuid=(email))