FOOTBALL – Bahrain named yesterday a 29-member youth football national team that will be holding a training camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina this month.
The gathering will be part of their preparations for their upcoming competitions, headlined by the AFC U17 Asian Cup 2026 qualifiers, which are set to be held in November.
The Bahrain Football Association announced the call-ups made by Croatian tactician Ugo Klingor.
The kingdom’s roster includes Khaled Al Khaja, Kamil Al Sitrawi, Jaafar Sadeq, Karrar Howaida, Haitham Shafi, Ahmed Hani, Omar Abdulwahab, Husain Zainuddin, Eyad Tohami, Idris Al Mansour, Eyad Mustafa, Bader Abdulaziz, Faisal
Abdulsalam, Mohammed Salah, Mujahid Al tairi, Hussain Amir, Jassim bin Jamea, Mohammed Al Hassouni, Abdulrahman Majed, Ali Al Araibi, Abdulla Saad, Hussain Zuhair, Anas Mohammed, Talal Mahmoud, Mohammed Al Jazzaf, and goalkeepers Rashed Al Khalaki, Omar Al Balooshi, Hussain Al Majed, and Abdulla Khalil.
The Bahrainis’ Sarajevo trip will be their second major overseas camp in a few weeks’ time after returning earlier this month from their programme in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. There, they played a pair of friendly games against their host counterparts.
For their qualifying campaign, scheduled from November 22 to 30, the Bahrainis are one of 38 teams looking to vie for just seven available places in the AFC U17 Asian Cup 2026, which will be held from May 7 to 24 in Saudi Arabia.
The field has been divided into seven groups – each to be held at a centralised location – with Bahrain drawn in Group A alongside hosts China, Bangladesh, Brunei, Timor-Leste, and Sri Lanka.
All the group winners will progress to the tournament finals, where they will join the nine Asian Football Confederation (AFC) representatives from the Fifa U-17 World Cup 2025 who have already qualified, including Qatar, Uzbekistan, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Tajikistan, the UAE, Indonesia, and Saudi.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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