Sousa all praise for Bahrain team

Bahrain head coach Helio Sousa was all praise for his team following their resounding 4-2 victory over Kuwait on Monday night, which sent them through to tomorrow’s semi-finals in the 24th Arabian Gulf Cup in Doha. The Bahrainis defied the odds and came from last place in their group heading into the match to secure second position and the last coveted berth in the final four.

“Today we came back from a difficult situation; we had one bad game [in a 0-2 loss against Saudi Arabia] but our players recovered and they were all very good,” Sousa said after their win against Kuwait. “For us to do what we were able to do is great. We created many chances but we must be more efficient with the situations we are creating. But at the end of the day, I think we were the best team.

“We got much more chances to score and we did what we came here to do, which is fight for every game to win. If that can bring us to the next phase of the competition, which is the semi-finals, then we are very happy to keep making our fans proud with what we are building up.” Sousa is delighted with the strong team identity the Bahrainis are gradually developing, which he says is key if they want to be successful.

“Our players try to make something happen in the game, not wait on the opponents to make mistakes and then take our chances from that,” he said. “We are a team that wants to make things happen and we want to force our opponents to make mistakes so we can take advantage of them. Our players are giving great compromise with this proposal. “We have 23 here, and all of them have the conditions to be a starter on our team.

They can help make us be the strongest we can be, and this is our way of working. “Now it is a moment to give high-level games to some of the players who have not played too much since August. Here they have a chance to play and they say to us that the team can count on them and that Bahrain can count on them.” Sousa went on to admit that they once again face a tough challenge against Iraq, who they will be meeting for the fourth time in the past few months.

The first was in a victory in the West Asian Football Federation Championship final, and then the next two were in the joint-qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023, where both games finished as draws. The Portuguese tactician expects no less than another mammoth task against the so-far-unbeaten Iraqis in their Gulf Cup semi-final, which is tomorrow at 5.30pm at Doha’s Jassim bin Hamad Stadium.

“Iraq is a fantastic team with fantastic players,” he said. “What they are doing here is showing the quality of the players and capacity of their team. They are one of the top level teams at this moment in Asia, and we are building a team that can fight with all these teams. For sure we will be there giving our best and trying to get what we want from that game, which will be the win. The other semi-final between Saudi Arabia and Qatar is also tomorrow at 8pm at Al Janoub Stadium.