Bahrain’s national football team is all set to play the visiting Panama side tomorrow at the Bahrain National Stadium.
This will be the second of three international friendly matches arranged by the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) this season in order to get some much-needed match practice for the national side.
Bahrain lost 2-1 to Cape Verde in the first game last Friday in a tough contest that belied its friendly status.
The match against Panama also promises to be an enthralling one with the visiting side bolstered by the large number of players in their group who play for top club teams across Europe, the United States and South America.
Panama are also placed higher than the hosts in the Fifa world rankings, occupying 61st place to Bahrain’s 85th position.
But Bahrain have home advantage and will be match-ready following their extremely competitive game against Cape Verde which, had the kingdom’s team made the most of their many opportunities, could well have seen a different result.
The home team will also hope that striker Abdulla Yusuf Helal is able to carry on his fine form from the match against Cape Verde into this game. Although Helal was unable to score in that match, his electric presence in the field led to him creating a number of scoring opportunities, the most memorable one being when he nearly defeated the goalkeeper, Marcio Rosa, with a booming right-footed kick.
Coach Helio Sousa has a 24-member squad to choose from and he might opt to take the same route as he did in Friday’s game, when he rang in substitutions in the second half – Helal being one of them – meaning that 14 players managed to get some meaningful match practice.
Meanwhile, Panama manager, Thomas Christiansen, who played two games for Spain in the early nineties and had a long and successful career representing varied club sides such as Barcelona and Villarreal, among others, from 1991 to 2006, has an 18-member squad to choose from.
Panama squad: Orlando Mosquera, Cesar Samudio, Eduardo Anderson, Fidel Escobar, Andres Andrade, Jose Cordoba, Cesar Blackman, Michael Murillo, Adalberto Carrasquilla, Cristian Martinez, Cesar Yanis, Angel Orelien, Martim Moran, Jorge Mendez, Romeesh Ivey, Azarias Londono, Ismael Diaz, Eduardo Guerrero.
Bahrain squad: Ammar Abbas, Ameen Hassan, Waleed Al Hayyam, Sayed Dhiya Saeed, Hamad Al Shamshan, Ali Madan, Mohamed Marhoon, Abdulla Yusuf Helal, Abdulwahab Almalood, Mahdi Abdullatif, Mohammed Alromaihi, Ali Haram, Jassim Alshaikh, Sayed Ridha Isa, Mohammed Adel, Komail Alaswad, Mahdi Humaidan, Sayed Mohamed Jaffar, Ebrahim Lutfalla, Rashid Alhooty, Jassim Alsalama, Abdulaziz Mohamed, Hussain Alkhayyat, Ebrahim Alkhatal.
After the Panama game, Bahrain’s next friendly match will be against Serbia, also at home on November 18. Serbia, who have qualified for the 2022 World Cup Finals in Qatar, will use the game as part of their preparation for the tournament.
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