A 19-member Bahrain squad leaves for Doha today to take part in the Asian Men’s Handball Qualification Tournament for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The 11-team championship starts in the Qatar capital on Wednesday and is scheduled to run until October 28. Bahrain have slotted in Group B, along with Iran, Kuwait, Japan and Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan, who would have been the sixth team in the group, withdrew from the tournament.
Hosts Qatar are in Group A which also features South Korea, Saudi Arabia, India, China and the UAE.
Bahrain coach Aron Kristjansson, who guided the kingdom’s team to the final of the handball competition in the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, where they lost to eventual champions, Qatar, earlier this month, was circumspect when asked about his team’s prospects.
“We’re just coming off a very tough schedule in a big tournament,” he said, referring to Bahrain’s campaign in the Asiad which finished in the final on October 5, with their unbeaten run in the tournament coming to an end with a 32-25 defeat to gold medallists, Qatar.
“We played five very difficult games in seven days – and seven games, overall, in 10 days.
“That is a big load for even the fittest athletes to bear and endure so we’ve had some injury problems. That’s why we have a 19-member squad for the Olympic qualifier – instead of the 18-strong party we usually take – because two of our key players, who will be travelling to Doha with us, are still nursing injuries.
“In fact, we have added some new players to the squad because several of our men picked up serious injuries in Hangzhou so they’re not going to be with us. There just wasn’t enough time for them to recover fully.”
Since the new players had hooked up with the squad in a training camp after the team’s return from China, his focus had been on getting the players to coordinate tactically throughout the practice sessions, Kristjansson added.
“With new blood in the team, it was important to get the incoming players to understand how we operate tactically,” he explained.
“So we’ve been working very hard in our preparation for this tournament. We’re in a very tough group – Japan are one of the best sides in Asia while Kuwait and Iran are also very good. So we’ll have our work cut out for us.”
Kristjansson, who played as a centre-back for his native Iceland from 1993 to 2003, is in his second stint as Bahrain coach – he steered the team to its first-ever Asiad silver medal at the 2018 Asian games in his first tenure – and thinks the kingdom’s side has developed well over the past five years.
“We’ve evolved and developed as a team over the past five years,” he said.
“We are now at a level where we can challenge the big teams in Europe. As I keep on telling the players, without training and hard work, nothing is possible.”
Bahrain will face Kazakhstan in their first game on Wednesday before squaring off against Japan the very next day.
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