Bahrain squad trimmed for Serbia camp

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A 20-player Bahrain team has been named for their over- seas training camp in Serbia, which kicks off today.

The Bahrain Football Association announced yesterday the senior men’s national football squad that will be taking part in the training period in Belgrade.

The list was trimmed down from a line-up of 30 players, who were originally called up by new head coach Juan Antonio Pizzi to begin training locally earlier this month.

The updated squad includes Hamza Al Juban, Amine Hasan, Abdulla Al Khalasi, Hussain Jameel, Sayed Mohammed Jaafar, Sayed Redha Issa, Abdulkarim Al Fardan, Ahmed Al Sherooqi, Mubarak Mohammed, Waleed Al Hayyam, Ahmed Nabeel, Ali Hassan Saeed, Komail Alaswad, Ali Haram, Jassim Al Shaikh, Talal Al Sherooqi, Abbas Al Asfoor, Ebrahim Luthfallah, Ebrahim Al Khattal and Ahmed Moussa.

None of Bahrain’s three overseas-based professionals will be in Serbia, namely Ali Madan, Mohammed Marhoon and Abdulla Yusuf. However, they are expected to join the national team next month in Dubai, where they will continue their overseas programme from 2 September. It is unclear if the rest of the original 30-player list will also be in the Emirates at that time.

The Serbia camp is part of the Bahrainis’ preparations for their upcoming continental qualifying campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, starting this November. The nationals are expected to play a number of scrimmage games during this period.

Aside from the 20 players, the Kingdom’s delegation also includes 20 officials, headed by Pizzi and national team director Rashed Al Zayani. After shifting their programme to Dubai, Bahrain will play two international friendly matches there, first against their counterparts from Kuwait on 7 September and then with Turkmenistan on 12 September.

The Bahrainis will later play two more exhibition contests in October, both at home. They will lock horns with the Philippines men’s national team on 12 October and then against Kyrgyzstan on 17 October.

Aside from World Cup qualification, Bahrain is also gearing up for the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup, to be held in Doha in January of next year. There are five rounds in the World Cup 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. Bahrain will play directly in the second round of qualifiers starting November.

They have been drawn in a competitive Group H along with the UAE, and either Yemen or Sri Lanka and Nepal or Laos. The nationals kick off their campaign on 16 November against either Yemen or Sri Lanka. There are 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.