Bahrain’s senior men’s football team has started training in Dubai ahead of an international friendly fixture against Kuwait on Thursday.
A 20-member squad arrived in Dubai from Serbia on Saturday night, after spending a fortnight in Stara Pazova, a picturesque town about 40km from the Serbian capital, Belgrade, where they played three practice matches against club sides alongside a specially-arranged training camp.
The team will play a second international friendly against Turkmenistan in Dubai on September 12 before heading back to the kingdom a day later.
“We have started the second leg of our overseas training camps,” Bahrain team director Rashed Al Zayani told the GDN by phone from Dubai.
“The players are in good spirits and in fine fettle after a productive experience in Serbia. And the squad is now complete with the arrival of Abdulla Yusuf Helal, Mohammed Marhoon and Ali Madan who couldn’t join the camp in Serbia because of club commitments.”
Marhoon, who plays for Kuwait SC, and Madan, who turns out for Ajman FC, reached Dubai after a brief break in Bahrain while Helal travelled to the UAE directly from Prague where he plays for Czech Republic club, Mladá Boleslav, Al Zayani added.
Bahrain’s new head coach Juan Antonio Pizzi is supervising the training camp, like he did in Serbia, with a focus on trying to give every member of the squad adequate playing time in the forthcoming friendlies – a policy he adopted in the practice games in Stara Pazova too.
“We have been provided with excellent training facilities at the JA Sports Centre in Jebel Ali, which is only a five minute drive from the team hotel,” Al Zayani continued.
“The players are very focused and determined to make the most of the experience they gain from these friendly fixtures because of the important games coming up in the next couple of months.”
Bahrain are gearing up for their continental qualification campaign for the 2026 Fifa World Cup which gets underway in November.
Before that, though, they will play two more international friendlies in Bahrain next month: the first against the Philippines on October 12 and the second five days later, against Kyrgyzstan.
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