Bahrain head coach Juan Pizzi calls up full-strength football team

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain head coach Juan Antonio Pizzi has named a full-strength, 26-player senior men’s national football team for their two matches this month in continental qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The Bahrainis are set to play against Yemen on 16 November at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Sports City in Abha, Saudi Arabia, and then go up against the UAE at the National Stadium in Riffa on 21 November.

Pizzi has capped up Bahrain’s biggest names for the qualifiers.

Among them are the Kingdom;s four overseas-based professionals in Ali Madan from Ajman Club in the UAE, Mohammed Marhoon from Kuwait SC in Kuwait, Abdulla Yusuf from FK Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic and Moses Atede from Kedah Darul Aman FC in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, his local selections are from defending Nasser bin Hamad Bahrain Premier League champions Al Khaldiya, Riffa, Muharraq, Manama, Al Ahli and Al Najma.

Mahdi Humaidan, Ahmed Bughammar, Mohammed Adel and Mohammed Al Hardan have been chosen from Khaldiya.

From Riffa are Abdulkarim Al Fardan, Ali Hassan, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, Hussain Al Aker, Komail Al Aswad, Jassim Al Shaikh, Mohammed Abdulqayoom, and Hazza Ali.

From Muharraq are Sayed Mohammed Jaafar, Amine Hasan, Waleed Al Hayyam, Abdulla Al Khalasi and Mubarak Mohammed; while from Al Ahli are Ebrahim Luthfallah and Abdulla Al Hashash.

Ebrahim Al Khattal was selected from Manama, while completing the roster from Najma are Mohammed Abdulwahab and Ebrahim Al Wali. Kick off The nationals are scheduled to kick off their training programme on Sunday.

Aside from FIFA World Cup qualification, Bahrain are also gearing up for the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup, to be held in Doha in January of next year.

These are the national team’s first official games under Pizzi.

There are five rounds in the FIFA 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 are directly in the second round of qualifiers in Group H with the UAE, Yemen and Nepal.

After these two upcoming matches, the qualifiers only resume next year.

They take on Nepal on 21 March, and then face off with the Nepalese again on 26 March.

They then face Yemen on 6 June, before completing this stage against the UAE on 11 June.

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.