Bahrain coach ‘proud’ of players

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain head coach Dragan Talajic expressed hs pride in the Kingdom’s senior men’s national football team for their  exceptional performance in their 5-0 drubbing of Nepal on Thursday night in the joint-qualifiers of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup 2027.

The Bahrainis played with renewed vigour, making sublime passes and showing more determination in attack in their very first time taking to the pitch for an official match under Talajic. The Croatian was questioned for a few of his squad selections but all the players proved the doubters wrong for the full three points.

“Congratulations to my boys,” Talajic said in his post-game 

Press conference. “They played a good game. This game is for nobody else except for them. “They really made a good job today. I am proud of them.” Five different players were on target for Bahrain in the win, including Mahdi Humaidan, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, and Ali Madan in the first half, and substitutes Ebrahim Al Khattal and veteran striker Ismaeel Abdullatif late on just minutes before the full-time whistle.

Talajic hopes to see another show of quality when Nepal and Bahrain meet once again in the joint-qualifiers on Tuesday next week. Serious “The second game will be more difficult,” he said. “We played well tonight, but we can play much better.

The second game we have to be serious and grab another three points. “We have good players with good character. With all of them, we can do it.” Both Bahrain and Nepal are in Group H of joint-qualification along with the UAE and Yemen. The Emiratis were 2-1 victors against their Yemeni counterparts in Thursday’s other pool fixture, played in Abu Dhabi.

With both results, the Bahrainis remained in second place on the Group H table with six points, behind undefeated leaders the UAE who have a maximum nine points from three matches. Yemen are third on three points and Nepal last with zero points.

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.