Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Riffa: Bahrain moved to within one point of the Philippines in Group H of the FIFA World Cup 2018/AFC Asian Cup 2019 joint-qualifiers as the Gulf side avenged their opening loss to the Azkals with a 2-0 win on Tuesday.
A 53rd minute strike from veteran Ismaeel Abdullatif, an international since 2005, broke the deadlock at the Bahrain National Stadium before Sayed Mohamed Adnan doubled the lead for Sergio Batista’s side just after the hour mark with his second of the qualifiers following his strike in last month’s 4-0 defeat of Yemen.
Bahrain, who went down 2-1 to the Philippines in their Group H curtain raiser back in June, remain fourth in the standings below their ASEAN rivals, with just one point now separating the two sides.
The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) will advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + 1 slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup.
NEXT FIXTURES:
12/11/15: Philippines v Yemen
17/11/15: DPR Korea v Bahrain