Bahrain hit five past Nepal

TDT | Manama    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain posted a resounding 5-0 victory over Nepal last night in their joint-qualifying match for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup 2027. Five different players were on target for the Bahrainis at the National Stadium in Riffa, including Mahdi Humaidan, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, Ali Madan, Ebrahim Al Khattal, and Ismaeel Abdullatif.

Humaidan gave the home team a dream start—both to the match and to the tenure of Bahrain’s new head coach Dragan Talajic—scoring just two minutes from kick-off. The hosts never wavered from there, adding two more prior to half-time before closing out the contest with a pair of late goals.

Last night’s encounter was the first of two meetings between Bahrain and Nepal in less than a week. The two sides square off once again on Tuesday in another qualifying contest. Both teams are in Group H along with the UAE and Yemen. The Emiratis were 2-1 victors against their Yemeni counterparts in last night’s other pool fixture, played at Al Nahyan Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

With both match results, the Bahrainis remained in second place on the Group H table behind the UAE, with Yemen in third and Nepal last. At the end of this stage of the joint-qualifiers, the winners and runners-up of each of the nine groups advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup 2026 qualification, and also book their direct tickets to the AFC Asian Cup 2027.

Brilliant

In last night’s contest, Humaidan’s match-opener came off a brilliantly headed pass from Mohammed Jassim Marhoon. He scored with just one touch from close range past Nepal goalkeeper Kiran Kumar Limbu. In the eighth minute, Marhoon could have doubled their advantage but his attempt was blocked by Limbu.

But that mattered little as on the ensuing corner, Baqer tapped in from the face of goal after Nepal failed to clear. Bahrain continued to attack and Madan hit the side-netting in the 11th minute. He later had a one-on-one with Limbu in the 31st, but he shot straight at the opposing stopper. Right before the break, the Bahrainis made it three and this time it was Madan who got onto the scoresheet.

A curling freekick from Marhoon hit the left post and Madan was first to the rebound. He then headed in over Limbu to add to their account. In the second half, substitute Abdulla Yusuf should have headed in off a Marhoon cross, but his effort while unchallenged was narrowly wide of the left upright.

Abdullatif came on with just over 10 minutes to go and immediately had a headed chance collected by Limbu, while youngster Ahmed Al Sherooqi also had a crack at scoring with a fine long-range effort punched away by Limbu.