Bahrain's senior men’s football national team kicked off their latest training gathering last night at the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) pitches in Riffa.
The kingdom’s internationals came together for an opening practice session at home prior to their departure for Europe for a two-week camp in Maribor, Slovenia, to be held under the supervision of national team head coach Dragan Talajic.
The camp is part of their summer preparations for upcoming competitions, highlighted by the start of the third round of Asian qualification for the Fifa World Cup 2026. The nationals are scheduled to leave for Slovenia today.
Talajic welcomed his players yesterday, with a special greeting given to his newest call-ups, including Vincent Emmanuel, Sayed Ahmed Al Wadaei, Abbas Al Asfoor and Abdulkarim Al Fardan.
They are part of a 30-player roster for the camp. The others include Ali Madan, Komail Al Aswad, Mahdi Humaidan, Jassim Al Shaikh, Waleed Al Hayyam, Amine Benaddi, Sayed Mohammed Jaafar, Ebrahim Luthfallah, Ebrahim Al Khattal, Abdulla Al Khalasi, Ahmed Al Sherooqi, Hussain Abdulkarim, Ahmed Abdulhameed, Ammar Mohammed, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, Ahmed Nabeel, Hamad Shamsan, Mohammed Adel, Mohammed Al Banna, Hazza Ali, Ali Haram, Moses Atede, Sayed Dhiya Saeed, Abdulwahab Al Malood, Mahdi Abduljabbar and Ismaeel Abdullatif.
Two major names missing from their camp will be Abdulla Yusuf and Mohammed Marhoon – both influential players and regular call-ups on the kingdom’s squad. They will both be with their respective clubs during this period and will not be reporting for international duty.
At their Maribor camp, the Bahrainis will be playing two friendly matches against top clubs, first on Wednesday next week and then on July 29. One of their opponents has already been confirmed in top Croatian outfit NK Lokomotiva Zagreb, while the other has yet to be announced. The BFA have also yet to confirm the dates of each tune-up game.
The squad is scheduled to return to the kingdom on August 2.
There are three groups in all in the third round of continental qualification for the Fifa World Cup 2026. Bahrain are in Group C alongside Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China and Indonesia. Group A features Iran, Qatar, Uzbekistan, the UAE, Kyrgyzstan and North Korea; while Group B is composed of South Korea, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Palestine and Kuwait.
The top two finishers from each group will punch their tickets to the World Cup finals. The third and fourth-placed squads will compete in a fourth round, where they will be divided into another two groups. There, the winners of each qualify for football’s global showpiece. The two second-placers will then square off in a home-and-away phase with the victors marching forward to compete in an inter-continental play-off for one final available World Cup berth.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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