Bahrainis go down to Palestinians in late loss

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s under-23 Olympic football team suffered a late, heartbreaking 0-1 defeat to their counterparts from Palestine last night in their opening Group D qualifier for the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2024.

The Bahrainis conceded the game’s lone goal in the first minute of second-half stoppage time.

Zeid Qunbar fired in  winner on a quick counterattack and against some poor Bahrain defending.

Qunbar’s strike proved devastating for the hosts, who had most of the chances in the game.

Opportunities for the Palestines were few and far between, but they were able to convert the decider.

In last night’s other Group D fixture at Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Stadium at Muharraq Club in Arad, group favourites Japan enjoyed a resounding 6-0 rout of Pakistan.

The lopsided win propelled the Japanese to the top of the group table.

Bahrain will hope to bounce back on Saturday when they return to action against Pakistan at 6.30pm at the same venue. Later that evening, Palestine go up against Japan.

The qualifiers’ last matchday will be on Tuesday next week, when Bahrain and Japan face off in the early fixture, followed by Palestine and Pakistan locking horns in the late game.

Opportunities In last night’s loss, Bahrainis Abdulla Alsubaiei and Mubarak Mohammed had golden opportunities on either side of the interval to open the scoring.

Alsubaiei had the best chance of the first half when he was left all alone to fire into an empty goal in the 12th minute.

However, he hit his shot from an acute angle straight into the side-netting.

Then, early in the second half, Mohammed’s on-target effort from inside the box was kicked away right on time by Palestinian goalkeeper Abdelhadi Yassin.

The match appeared headed for a goalless deadlock until Qunbar’s stunning winner.

After Bahrain could not create a shot on their end, a long pass from Palestine’s Mohammed Sandouqa on the counter found its way to Qunbar as Bahrain’s Hasan Isa Juma mistimed his clearance.

That left Qunbar with a clear path towards goal and a one-onone with Bahraini goalkeeper Salman Adel.

Qunbar made no mistake with his low effort, slotting home past a surprised Adel.

Palestine’s late win earned them the all-important three points in Group D, where they are currently in second place.

There are 11 groups in all in the AFC U23 Asian Cup 2024 qualifiers, with each group being held at a centralised venue.

Following a single round-robin, the 11 group winners and four best second-placed teams qualify for the AFC U23 Asian Cup, which will be held in Doha.

They join hosts Qatar, who have received automatic qualification, to form a cast of 16.

The tournament is scheduled to be played between 15 April and 3 May, 2024.

Bahrain have qualified just once in the previous five editions of the AFC U-23 Asian Cup.

That was in the 2020 event held in Thailand, where they did not make it past the group stage.