FOOTBALL – BAHRAIN’S senior men’s football national team suffered a 1-3 defeat to Croatian First League outfit NK Istra 1961 last night in a friendly match played in Europe.
The tune-up was part of the Bahrainis’ overseas training camp in Maribor, Slovenia, being held under the supervision of head coach Dragan Talajic and his staff.
The nationals gave up all three of NK Istra’s goals in the first half. Nigerian Salim Fago Lawal fired in a brace, while Bosnian teammate Stjepan Loncar supplied the other goal. Scoring for Bahrain after the break was Ebrahim Al Khattal, who was on target in the 67th minute.
The game was the first of two friendlies for the kingdom’s squad while in Maribor. The other will be against Slovenian First League team NK Primorje on Tuesday next week.
Bahrain’s camp is scheduled to conclude next Thursday, with the team slated to return to the island the following day.
Talajic has 28 players for this gathering. He fielded a starting 11 yesterday that included Ebrahim Luthfallah in goal, along with Al Khattal, Abdulla Al Khalasi, Hamad Shamsan, Waleed Al Hayyam, Amine Benaddi, Mahdi Humaidan, Hussain Abdulkarim, Ali Madan, Komail Al Aswad, and skipper Sayed Dhiya Saeed.
The rest of their roster includes Mahdi Abduljabbar, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, Ahmed Bughammar, Sayed Mahmood Al Mosawi, Hazza Ali, Vincent Emmanuel, Hussain Al Eker, Jassim Al Shaikh, Ahmed Al Sherooqi, Abdulkarim Al Fardan, Abdulla Al Subaie, Hussain Jameel, Omar Saber, Ahmed Dhiya, Ahmed Abdulhameed, Yousef Habib, and Mohammed Al Gharabli.
Bahrain are gearing up for a number of competitions, headlined by the Fifa Arab Cup 2025 this December in Doha, Qatar.
The nationals must first play a qualifying game in November against Djibouti to secure their spot in the Fifa Arab Cup’s group stage. The date and venue of the single-game contest has yet to be announced.
Should the Bahrainis win, they will be in Group D for the tournament proper, where they will join Algeria, Iraq, and either Lebanon or Sudan.
Group A features competition hosts Qatar, Tunisia, Syria or South Sudan, and Palestine or Libya; Group B is composed of Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman or Somalia, and Yemen or Comoros; and Group C includes Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and either Kuwait or Mauritania.
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