FOOTBALL – Bahrain have named their final 24-player squad that will compete in the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2026 Qualifiers.
The kingdom’s under-23 Olympic football team arrived yesterday in Doha, Qatar, which hosts Group H in qualifying, kicking off on Wednesday.
The Bahrainis are slotted alongside India, Brunei Darussalam, and hosts Qatar.
The kingdom’s delegation in the Qatari capital is headed by Bahrain Football Association board member Shaikh Salman bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa.
The Olympic team, coached by Bahraini tactician Ali Abdulmajeed, features a roster that includes Issa Abdulla, Hashem Khulaifat, Abdulla Al Qassab, Mohammed Al Shehani, Salman Younes, Bader Al Asam, Abdulla Al Obaidli, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaie, Mahmoud Al Bannai, Khaled Khalaf, Rashed Mujeran, Abdulrahman Al Khayyat, Salem Al Doseri, Ali Sahwan, Saad Al Attar, Saud Mohsen, Mubarak Mohammed, Hassan Sameer, Abdulla Al Subaie, Sayed Mahmoud Al Mosawi, Ahmed Dhiya, and goalkeepers Ashraf Mubarak, Mohammed Khalifa, and Abdulla Freah.
After reaching their destination yesterday, the Bahrainis went right to work with evening training under Abdulmajeed’s supervision.
Bahrain’s under-23s open their qualification bid against India on Wednesday. The match will be played at Doha’s Suheim bin Hamad Stadium, and it is scheduled for a 6.15pm kick-off.
The Bahrainis will then take on Brunei Darussalam on Saturday, also at 6.15pm at the same venue, before completing their schedule against home side Qatar on September 9 at 8pm at Abdulla bin Khalifa Stadium.
Bahrain are one of 44 Olympic teams hoping to book a berth in next year’s AFC U23 Asian Cup.
The field has been divided into 11 groups, each being held in a centralised location.
At the end of a single round-robin, each group winner and the four best best-ranked runners-up will book their tickets to next year’s competition proper and join hosts Saudi Arabia, who are staging the event for the first time.
Group A features hosts Jordan, Turkmenistan, Chinese Taipei, and Bhutan; Group B is composed of hosts Myanmar, Japan, Kuwait, and Afghanistan; Group C consists of hosts Vietnam, Yemen, Singapore, and Bangladesh; Group D comprises hosts China, Australia, Timor-Leste, and Northern Mariana Islands; Group E features hosts Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Palestine, and Sri Lanka; Group F consists of hosts Thailand, Malaysia, Lebanon, and Mongolia; Group G is composed of hosts Cambodia, Iraq, Oman, and Pakistan; Group I comprises hosts UAE, Iran, Hong Kong, and Guam; Group J features hosts Indonesia, South Korea, Laos, and Macau; and Group K is composed of hosts Tajikistan, Syria, the Philippines, and Nepal.
Next year’s AFC U23 Asian Cup will be its seventh edition. Bahrain have qualified for the tournament just once in the past – in the 2020 event held in Bangkok, Thailand.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))