Bahrain set for Serbia camp

TDT | Manama                        

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s senior men’s national football team will hold an overseas camp in Serbia next month as part of their first major training gathering under newly signed head coach Juan Antonio Pizzi.

This was confirmed yesterday by a team official, who said that the squad will first convene locally in the first week of August prior to departing for Belgrade.

The nationals are planning to kick off the gathering on August 3, but this has yet to be finalised by Coach Pizzi. The Bahrainis are expected to play friendlies during their camp against yet-to-be-determined opponents.

Bahrain are gearing up for an important period in the coming months, as they kick off their continental qualification campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup this November. They will then compete in the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup in Doha in January of next year.

These will be the national team’s first big games under Pizzi, under whom the Bahrain Football Association is hopeful that the Kingdom qualifies for its first-ever World Cup. There are five rounds in the qualification format for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which will have eight teams book their tickets to the global showcase plus potentially another following an inter-confederation play-off.

Draw

Bahrain will play directly in the second round. The draw for the groupings will be held tomorrow. There will be 36 nations in all in this phase, divided into nine groups of four. The teams will play against each other on a home-and-away basis.

The nine group winners and group runners-up advance to the third round. In addition to this, they will also automatically qualify for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Matches in this stage of qualification will continue until June of next year.

In the third round of the World Cup qualifiers, 18 teams will be divided into three groups of six. After playing one another on a home-and-away basis, the top two of each group qualify directly for the World Cup, while the third and fourth-placed teams advance to the fourth round.

In round four, the six teams are divided into two groups of three. They play against each other once in a neutral venue. The winners of each group qualify for the World Cup, and the runners-up of each group advance to the fifth round.

There, they will compete home-and-away over two legs to determine the Asian representation at the inter-confederation play-offs. Bahrain advanced to inter-confederation play-offs twice in the past—first facing Trinidad and Tobago for a berth in the 2006 World Cup and then against New Zealand for a place in the 2010 competition—but narrowly lost by a single goal both times.

Meanwhile, in the upcoming Asian Cup, Bahrain are one of 24 teams who have qualified for the continent’s premier tournament. The nationals are in Group E of the competition’s preliminary round, alongside South Korea, Malaysia and Jordan.