Bahrain have ‘endless ambition ceiling’

TDT | Manama     

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The sky’s the limit for Bahrain handball, and the junior national team’s best-ever finish of 13th in the 24th IHF Men’s Junior World Championship 2023 is a reflection of that.

This has been claimed by talented young goalkeeper Hesham Isa, who was one of the Bahrainis’ key pieces in their stunning run in the under-21 competition, co-hosted by Greece and Germany.

In the junior worlds, the Bahrainis advanced to the competition’s main stage for the first time in its history. They then wrapped up their campaign with a fine victory over Greece to secure their final ranking of 13th amongst the 32 competing national teams.

“Qualifying for this stage can be seen as an unprecedented historical achievement for Bahrain handball and is a clear reflection of the development of our handball in the last years,” Isa told ihf.info, the official website of the International Handball Federation (IHF).

The juniors are following in the footsteps of the Kingdom’s senior men’s team, who have also been rising on the global stage in recent years. They claimed their best-ever classification of 16th from 32 teams at the 2023 IHF Men’s World Championship, co-hosted by Poland and Sweden in January.

Under the supervision of Icelandic coach Aron Kristjánsson, Bahrain had also qualified for the first time ever for the Olympic Games, ending the Tokyo 2020 edition in eighth place, making for another milestone.

“Our results have recently seen many impressive achievements and excellent results, the most important being, in my opinion, qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and finishing eighth,” Isa said.

“Being regulars at the IHF Men’s World Championship is also a huge performance. “We have an endless ambition ceiling. Despite the achievement of reaching the main round here, at Germany/Greece 2023, and at Poland/Sweden 2023 in the senior competition, we still want better results, and we will fight to achieve top results in these competitions.”

The nationals’ 13th-place finish eclipses their previous two classifications of 17th overall when they played in the junior handball worlds in the 1995 and 2019 editions. The Bahrainis were coached by Essam Abdulla, and the roster included Isa, Abdulla Abdulkarim, Komail Fouad, Sadiq Jaafar, Hussain Ali, Mahmood Al Khunaizi, Mustafa Al Hayki, Ahmed Al Zain, Hassan Khalil, Yasser Qambar, Ali Madan, Ali Redha, Ali Al Asheeri, Mohammed Hameed, Ali Jameel, Ali Mahmood, Ahmed Redha and Jassim Khamis. Only the top eight remains to be determined over the final two days of play in the junior handball worlds today and tomorrow.