HANDBALL – BAHRAIN have named a youthful 25-player senior men’s national team for their initial preparations to compete in the Arab Handball Cup 2025.
The tournament is scheduled to be held in Kuwait City from May 4 to 12.
The nationals will be part of a high-quality, nine-nation field battling it out for the Arab title. The tournament is being organised by the Kuwait Handball Federation and the Arab Handball Federation.
The kingdom’s squad is welcoming back inspirational skipper Hussain Al Sayyad to international duty. Al Sayyad missed Bahrain’s last major competition, the 2025 IHF World Men’s Handball Championship in January, due to injury. His leadership was clearly missed in that tournament and the Bahrainis are getting a major boost with his return.
Also named onto the squad is Al Sayyad’s fellow-veteran Mohammed Abdulhussain, while the rest of the team is composed predominantly of Bahrain’s young but supremely talented standouts, including Mohammed Habib Nasser, Hasan Madan, Qassim Qambar, Mahmood Hussain, Ali Mahmood, Ali Redha, Abdulla Ali, Mohammed Hameed, Hussain Abdulla, Ali Al Asheeri, Ahmed Hussain, Jasim Khamis, Hesham Issa, Hassan Mirza, Qassim Al Shuwaikh, Abdulla Abdulkarim, Ahmed Redha, Moayed Sameer, Mujtaba Al Zaimour, Abdulla Al Zaimour, Sayed Ali Bassem, Salman Al Shuwaikh, and Ali Ahmed Dawood.
The Bahrainis are set to be guided in the tournament by Serbian coach Predrag Petljanski, who has been signed by the Bahrain Handball Federation (BHF) just for the competition.
Petljanski is scheduled to begin training today starting at 12.30pm at the BHF Arena in Umm Al Hassam, without the participation of the team’s call-ups from Al Ahli and Al Shabab, who will be clashing tonight in the final for the BHF Cup.
Bahrain will be in its first major international tournament since 2018 not being coached by Aron Kristjansson. Petljanski has replaced the Iceland tactician, whose contract with the BHF expired earlier this year.
Kristjansson has since moved on to take on the role of head coach for Kuwait’s senior men’s national team, who are also competing in the Arab Handball Cup as hosts. The other teams set to take to the court are Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi, and the UAE.
The draw for the event’s preliminary round is scheduled for today at 4pm, Bahrain time.
This year’s competition is the 10th edition of the event, which has been revived after a long hiatus, having been last held more than 20 years ago in 2002, when Bahrain won the title for the first and only time.
Other past champions include Egypt (1975 and 1977), Kuwait (1979 and 1988), Tunisia (1986 and 1993), Saudi Arabia (1998), and Algeria (2000).
The Arab Handball Cup 2025 is also set to be a preparatory tournament for the participating continental sides that will be battling it out in the 22nd Asian Men’s Handball Championship, which will be held in January and February next year.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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