Bahrain’s 30-member football team will depart for Abha, Saudi Arabia on Thursday, where they will play against Yemen the following day in the first match of Group H of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Second Qualifiers.
Head coach Juan Antonio Pizzi will accompany the team led by goalkeeper Saeed Mohamed Jaafar.
36 teams will be divided into 9 groups of 4 teams each to participate in the Asian Qualifiers. The remaining two teams in Group H are UAE and Nepal.
Coach Pizzi said yesterday that his players were satisfied with their preparations for the important match at the Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Stadium.
“We are very happy with our preparation,” he said.
“We have played four international friendlies in the last two months and have benefited a lot from those matches and from the training camp we held earlier.”
Pizzi, who only took over last July, led a 20-man team to Serbia and then held back-to-back training camps in Dubai from mid-August to early September.
While in Dubai, Bahrain also played in the first two of four international friendlies, losing the first game 3-1 to Kuwait and drawing 1-1 with Turkmenistan.
After returning to the kingdom, they played two more matches, defeating Kyrgyzstan 2-0 and the Philippines 1-0.
Pizzi, who brought his possession-based philosophy to the Bahrain camp, was not afraid to try different combinations over the four games in an attempt to identify what worked best for the team.
“Like I said, we’re very happy with the work we’ve done preparing for this game,” Pizzi said.
“We are also keeping an eye on the Yemeni team and know that they have already been in their training camp for more than 10 days.”
Pizzi added that the situation in Abha at this time of year is not that different from the situation in Bahrain, so the arrival of the team in the Saudi city the day before the match will not pose a problem for the players in terms of getting used to the environment. . local climate.
“We are used to the climate,” he explained.
“And we are well prepared for this game.”
The Reds’ next opponents after the game against Yemen will be the UAE, who they will play at the Bahrain National Stadium five days later.
Team: Saeed Mohamed Ja’afar (captain/goalkeeper), Ameen bin Uday, Walid Al Khayyam, Abdullah Al Harashi, Mubarak Mohamed, Ibrahim Lutfallah, Abdullah Duaij, Abdullah Yusuf Helal, Abdulkarim Fardan, Ali Hasan, Saeed Mahdi Baqer, Hussein Al Eker, Kumail Al Aswad, Jassim Al Shaikh, Mohamed Abdul Qayyum, Hazza Ali, Ibrahim Al Khatar, Mahdi・Humaidan, Ahmed Bou Gamal, Mohamed Adel, Mohamed Al Hadan, Mohamed Abdulwahab, Ibrahim Al Wali, Mohamed Marhoun, Ali Madan, Moussi Atidi, Hussein Abdulkareem, Hamad Aldoseli, Hussein Salem, and Jassim Freif.