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THE Bahrain national team is all set to take on neighbours Qatar in the 2014 World Cup qualifying opener this Friday at the National Stadium in Riffa following a brilliant 1-0 victory against Sudan in an international football friendly.
The match saw a lot of action and quick plays. It was the second meeting between Bahrain and Sudan this summer after their Olympic teams met in a friendly clash. This tune-up game was also part of a protocol signed recently by the football federations of both countries.
Bahrain’s coach Peter Taylor used the majority of his 36-member squad ahead of Qatar’s encounter, but was missing skipper Mohammed Salmeen, who is still recovering from injury.
Fullback Mohammed Hussain, who plays for Umm Salal in Qatar, had arrived from Doha 48 hours before the game. Bahrain controlled most of the game and managed to break the deadlock after 25 minutes when Ismail Abdullatif, who recently joined league champions Muharraq, scored the winning goal.
This is Bahrain’s last warm-up game before kicking off their campaign in the third round of the Asian qualifiers. A record 203 teams will be competing in the preliminary competition for Brazil 2014 – a number that will be whittled down to the 31 who will join the hosts for the 20th FIFA World Cup Finals. Bahrain falls into Group E alongside Qatar, Iran and Indonesia.
The top two teams from the group will advance to round four which will be made up of 10 countries divided into two groups.
Bahrain was scheduled to play Syria, but the game was cancelled as the latter were expelled by Fifa from the Asian qualifiers for introducing a player who previously represented Sweden during a friendly game with Tajikistan.
