Bahrain face tough Belarus test

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain take on Belarus tonight in an international friendly that will mark the conclusion of the senior men’s national football team’s latest training gathering in the Kingdom. The contest is scheduled to take place at the Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Stadium at Muharraq Club in Arad and it will kick off at 7pm.

Bahrain have already played two exhibition games in the past week, first defeating India 2-1 and then edging past Burundi 1-0. They will be looking to make it three in a row in these warmups, which are being held in preparation for their upcoming qualification campaign for the AFC Asian Cup 2023.

Belarus have also already played a match in the Kingdom this past week. They met with their Indian counterparts and won 3-0. Belarus head coach Georgy Kondratiev has called up 23 players for their games in Bahrain.

They include goalkeepers Egor Khatkevich (Dinamo-Minsk), Maxim Plotnikov (Shakhtar, Salihorsk) and Roman Stepanov (Shakhtar, Salihorsk); defenders Roman Yuzepchuk, Gleb Shevchenko, Ruslan Khadarkevich (all Shakhtar, Salihorsk), Maxim Shvetsov, Roman Begunov (both Dynamo-Minsk), Ruslan Yudenkov (Maktaaral, Atakent, Kazakhstan), Zakhar Volkov (Khimki, Russia) and Danila Nechaev (BATE, Borisov); midfielders Vladislav Klimovich (Gyirmot, Gyor, Hungary), Evgeny Yablonsky (Aris, Limassol, Cyprus), Max Ebong (Astana, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan), Artem Bykov (Dinamo-Minsk), Dmitry Podstrelov (Shakhtar, Soligorsk), Pavel Sedko (Torpedo, Moscow, Russia) and Dmitry Bessmertny and Valery Gromyko (both BATE, Borisov); and forwards Ivan Bakhar (Dinamo-Minsk) and Andrei Solovey (Shakhtar, Salihorsk). Bykov, Solovey and Gromyko were all on target for the Belarusians against India.

Bahrain head coach Helio Sousa has named a 26-player squad for this training period, which continues until March 29. The national team’s training roster includes Ali Madan, Abdulla Hazaa, Ali Haram, Abdulla Yousef, Komail Al Aswad, Mohammed Jassim Marhoon, Sayed Redha Isa, Jassim Al Shaikh, Hamad Shamsan, Abdulla Efrih, Abdulwahab Al Malood, Amine Hasan, Hamza Juban, Waleed Al Hayam, Sayed Mohammed Jaafar, Ahmed Abdulla, Mahdi Humaidan, Mohammed Hardan, Sayed Dhiya Saeed, Mahdi Abduljabbar, Ammar Abbas, Ebrahim Al Khattal, Abbas Ayyad, Abdulaziz Mohamed, Faisal Ghazi and Abdulla Hashash.

Bahrain are in Group E of Asian Cup qualifying along with Turkmenistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia. The games are set to be hosted in Kuala Lumpur. The AFC Asian Cup is scheduled to kick off on June 16 next year in China. Bahrain are looking to secure their seventh appearance in the tournament proper. They first appeared in 1988, and have qualified for the last five tournaments in 2004, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. The Bahrainis’ best finish in the competition was fourth in 2004. They reached the last 16 in 2019, but did not make it past the group stage the other times.