Bahrain eliminated from West Asian football

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain crashed out of the third West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) U-23 Championship last night following a 0-2 loss to hosts Saudi Arabia in their concluding Group B match.

The nationals conceded a goal on either side of half-time and were unable to reply. Saudi’s Ahmed Al Ghamdi fired in the Saudis’ opener in the 31st minute, while Ziad Al Junahi doubled the Saudis’ advantage in the 58th minute.

With the result, the nationals completed their preliminary round campaign tied on three points with the Saudis and Syria, but they lost out on a place in the semi-finals on goal difference.

The Bahrainis have thus been eliminated from further title contention and will now play one last game for their final classification. It will be against Lebanon for fifth place overall, and it will be held on Sunday.

Only the top two teams from each group at the end of this first phase will advance to the semi-finals. Qatar and Oman went through from Group A.

In the last edition of the WAFF U-23 Championship, Jordan were the champions while Saudi finished as runners-up. The nationals were also ousted from the group stage that year without any wins in two matches.

Bahrain are using the WAFF competition to help them gear up for the the qualifiers of the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2024, which will be held next year.

Head coach Dario Basic has a squad of 23 players for the tournament, including Mustafa Al Salem, Ahmed Rabia, Hassan Taha, Hussain Abdulkareem, Sayed Jawad Haider, Salem Hussain, Ali Mohammed Redha, Ammar Mirza, Adel Al Rumaihi, Saleh Al Zubaidi, Ali Kamel, Ahmed Kamel, Bashir Fouad, Mohammed Abdulqayoom, Ali Al Dosari, Ahmed Abdulhamid, Abdulla Al Khalasi, Omar Saber, Vincent Emmanuel, Hassan Abdulnabi, Hussain Al Ekri, Abdulrahman Al Kooheji and Abdulla Freah.