Bahrainis rally to draw friendly
By RAMI HULAYYEL
BAHRAIN battled to hold Syria 1-1 in a friendly soccer match last night at the National Stadium yesterday.
The match was part of Bahrain and Syria's preparations for their opening fixtures in the 2007 Asian Cup Group 'D' qualifying match on February 22. Kuwait and fast improving Lebanon are the other two teams in this group.
Bahrain take on Australia in the opener on February 22.
Syria are drawn in Group 'B' with favourites Iran, South Korea and Taiwan and play their first match at home against South Korea in Aleppo on February 22.
Two teams qualify for the Asian Cup finals to be held next year in Thailand, Indonesia Malaysia and Vietnam.
The visitors took the lead in the sixth minute through Ziyad Sha'abo who was set up by midfielder Jehad Al Hussain.
Bahrain midfielder Fawzi Ayesh hit a 60th-minute equaliser.
Bahrain's coach Luka Peruzovic made use of last night's match to try out the reserve players and at the end of the exercise declared that the national team needs to improve vastly to put up a good show in the Asian Cup qualifiers.
Bahrain played their match without nine first-team players, including the team's most capped goalkeeper Ali Hassan who is suffering a back injury.
Five first-team midfielders - Hamad Rakea, Ahmed Hassan, Hussain Salman, Mohammed Salmeen and Talal Yousef - and defender Abdulla Al Marzooqi were also out with niggling injuries.
Other first-team players who missed the match were Qatar Club midfielder Mohammed Hubail, who was not released by his club, while defender Hussain Baba is serving a four-match Fifa ban after he was sent off during Bahrain's 2006 World Cup final second-leg playoff against Trinidad and Tobago which they lost 0-1.
Qualifying
Peruzovic tried out a number of new players, including goal-keeper Mohammed Sayed Jaffer, defender Ali Amer and right back Ali Al Shehabi who made their Bahrain debut.
Syrian coach Miloslav Radinovic of Serbia and Montenegro said his side had a good chance of qualifying for the Asian Cup finals despite being drawn in a tough-looking group.
"Our group is very strong. It's something natural with 24 teams in the fray and you can't just wish for a lucky group," said Radinovic.
Following their game against South Korea, the Syrians will travel to Taipei for their second game on March 1.
"We have a 50 per cent chance to advance from this group," he added. "Everything depends on the first game against Korea and if we can achieve a good result then anything is possible.
"I really hope that everything will go well. As I said, Korea and Iran are very strong but the Syrian team can do very well. We have a young team and a group of good players. We also have professionals like Firas Al Khatib and Raja Rafe who play in Kuwait," he said.
Radinovic said Syria had already defeated Iran, who were missing only four or five key players, during the West Asian Games while the Koreans were held by Maldives in the first round of the 2006 World Cup qualifiers.
