Bahrain kick off West Asian title bid
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Bahrain’s under-23 Olympic team head coach Dario Basic was upbeat yesterday ahead of this evening’s start to the third West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) U-23 Championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Speaking at the coaches’ jointPress conference, the Croatian tactician said that he was delighted for his team to be participating in the tournament.
Basic said that their games were very important as they were up against high caliber teams in West Asia.
He added that he hopes his players take advantage of this experience in order to continue their ongoing development, which he said is very important as they are the future stars of the Kingdom’s senior men’s national team.
Bahrain assistant coach Khaled Taj was also on hand at the conference.
Also yesterday, the competition’s official technical meeting took place with the presence of representatives from the six participating Olympic teams, namely Oman, Qatar, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain and hosts Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain kick off their tournament campaign today against their Syrian counterparts at 9pm, Bahrain time.
The Bahrainis have been conducting their final preparations for the start of action.
Following a rest day on match day two, Bahrain are back in action on 9 November against the Saudis.
According to the tournament system, following a single round-robin within their pools, the top two teams qualify for the semi-finals.
There will then be gold and bronze medal games.
In the last edition of the WAFF U-23 Championship, Jordan were the champions while Saudi finished as runners-up.
The nationals were ousted from the group stage without any wins in two matches.
Bahrain are using this competition to help them gear up for the the qualifiers of the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2024, which will be held next year.
The AFC U23 Asian Cup is the premier continental event for Olympic teams.
Bahrain have taken part in the tournament just once in the past in 2020, when they did not make it past the group stage.
The 2024 tournament will mark the sixth edition.
The last event was played in June of this year in Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia were crowned champions among the 16 participating nations.
Bahrain did not qualify.
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