Bahrain make winning start!

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain kicked off their campaign in the NSDF Women’s Futsal Championship 2023 in Bangkok yesterday with a resounding 2-1 win over Capital Futsal Team from Australia.

Hessa Al Isa fired in both of the Bahrainis’ goals on either side of half-time.

The result secured a spot for the Bahrainis in the tournament’s semi-finals.

Hessa converted her first with nine minutes to go in the first period. She had an impressive effort from just outside the penalty area after some poor passing from their opponents.

That was enough to give Bahrain the lead heading into the break.

But not even a minute into the re-start, the nationals conceded an equaliser, scored by Capital’s Ayla Isabella Robertson from close range. Hessa then supplied the winner with 12 minutes remaining on the game clock.

She took advantage of an opposing defender’s error and unleashed a powerful shot that flew to the roof of the net.

The win was the first for Bahrain in Group A of the competition’s preliminary round. It was also the second loss for Capital Futsal Club, who suffered a 0-3 defeat to hosts Thailand in their previous fixture.

“Today was a rather tough match for us, because the last time we had a game was about a year ago,” Bahrain head coach Lino Gomes from Brazil was quoted as saying.

“The tournament is quite different from the usual warm-up in terms of speed and pressure of playing. “Our team has quite a lot of young players now, but the game feels very happy.

All the players did their best.

They deserved a win today. I have to congratulate the Capital team as they played very well and were strong opponents.”

The Bahrainis face off with their Thai counterparts today. The match is scheduled for a 1.30pm kick-off, Bahrain time.

“The game to face the Thai national team, we all know that they are a very strong team in Asia, but we will try our best to keep the victory,” Gomes said.

“Our goal now is to get to the next round, so that we will have a game for us to learn more.”

In Group B, Indonesia and China played to a 1-1 draw while Japan romped past Indonesia 8-0 in an earlier fixture.

At the end of the preliminary stage round-robin, the top two teams advance to the semi-finals. Bahrain are competing in the tournament with a 14-player squad.

Aside from Hessa, the other players are skipper Yasmeen Fayez, Manar Ebrahim, Shaikha Al Anood Al Khalifa, Rose Fayez, Amira Bader, Fatima Hamad, Dalal Abdulla, Zahra Nezar, Kholoud Saleh, Lilia Javed Sabkar, Maryam Abdulla, Iman Ramadan and Rawan Al Ali.

Bahrain are one of the leading women’s futsal squads in the region.

Last year, they claimed third place over all in the West Asian Football Federa tion Women’s Futsal Championship held in Saudi Arabia, where Iraq took the gold and Saudi claimed the silver medals.