Bahrain women’s team in final week of preparations for qualifiers

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s women’s national football team are in their final stages of preparations for their upcoming qualifiers for the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup.

The Kingdom is set to host the qualifying matches of Group A, which features Chinese-Taipei, Laos and the host Bahrainis. Turkmenistan were also set to compete in this group, but have withdrawn.

Bahrain therefore have just two matches to play in the coming week-and-a-half, first against Laos on Thursday and then against Chinese-Taipei on October 24. There are a total of 24 teams vying for a place in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup.

They have been divided into eight groups for qualifying. All eight group winners at the end of a single round-robin will book a ticket to the finals, which will be held next year in India.

The qualification groups are or have been held in five different locations, including Bahrain (Group A), Tajikistan (Groups B and C), Kyrgyzstan (Group D), Uzbekistan (Groups E, F and G) and Palestine (Group H). The Bahrainis played an international friendly match last week against India at home, but lost 0-5.

They continue their preparations under head coach Khalid Al Harban, who has 23 players gearing up for the qualifiers. They include Alia Jumaa Al Mudhaki, Yasmine Fayez, Manar Ebrahim, Marwa Mohammed Mubarak, Hoda Ali Salman, Khuloud Saleh Abdullah, Hessa Riyadh Al Essa, Rose Fayez, Amira Bader Siwar, Iman Rashid Al Khatal, Fatima Hamad Al Nusuf, Fatima Abdulhameed Issa, Rawan Nabeel Alali, Wesal Ahmed Al Yasi, Dana Bassem, Farah Jehad Khaled, Lilia Javed Sabkar, Zahra Nizar Ali, Maryam Abdulla Issa, Sara Mohammed Aliwi, Hana Ahmed Hafez, Sama Amjad Qassem and Munayer Ahmed.