Bahrain all set for Nepal test

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

National team stars Ali Madan and Waleed Al Hayyam will miss Bahrain’s match against Nepal tomorrow in the joint-qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup 2027.

Madan and Al Hayyam are suspended from the game for their accumulation of yellow cards, the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) confirmed yesterday.

Also not taking part in the contest will be Ahmed Bughammar, who has suffered an injury that will keep him sidelined.

The Bahrainis continued their preparations yesterday at the BFA pitches in Riffa for their upcoming tie, which is scheduled for a 10pm kick-off at the National Stadium in Riffa.

It is the second of back-toback fixtures between Bahrain and Nepal within the span of a week.

The nationals won their first meeting last Thursday with a resounding 5-0 score line and five different players on the score sheet, including Mahdi Humaidan, Sayed Mahdi Baqer, Madan, Ebrahim Al Khattal and Ismaeel Abdullatif. With Madan and Al Hayyam unavailable, head coach Dragan Talajic still has plenty of talent from the rest of his 30-player squad list, which features features Sayed Mohammed Jaffar, Abdulla Al Khalasi, Hassan Al Karani, Ahmed Al Sherooqi, Hussain Abdulkarim, Abdulla Ali Afreeh, Hamad Shamsan, Hazza Ali, Ali Haram, Komail Al Aswad, Jassim Al Shaikh, Ammar Mohammed, Mohammed Al Hardan, Mahdi Abduljabbar, Mohammed Adel, Ahmed Nabeel, Ahmed Abdulhameed, Moses Atede, Ebrahim Luthfallah, Mohammed Jassim Marhoon, Abdulla Yusuf, Abdulwahab Al Malood, and Mohammed Al Bannai.

Both Bahrain and Nepal are in Group H of joint-qualification along with the UAE and Yemen.

The Bahrainis are in second place on their pool standings 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.

Following tomorrow’s match with Yemen, Bahrain’s final two assignments of this qualifying round will be against Yemen at home on June 6, and then away against the UAE on June 11.

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.

There are five rounds in the FIFA World Cup qualification format for the AFC, which will have eight teams book their tickets to the global showcase, plus potentially another following an inter-confederation play-off.