Kuala Lumpur’s cavernous near-90,000 capacity Bukit Jalil National Stadium is one of football’s great sights, with its relentless noise and colour matching up well to most venues around the world.

Malaysia’s home venue was filled to the brim on three occasions within a matter of weeks late last year to support Harimau Malaya (Malayan Tigers) during the AFF Cup.

Abdulrahman has been out of national team action after suffering a knee injury last October that saw him miss out on the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, where UAE ended their campaign in the semi-finals.

With players based from Cyprus to Canada and the Maldives to Melbourne, there are few parts of the globe unrepresented in Dastgir’s side, who will face Qatar in Doha on September 5, before Dushanbe, Tajikistan plays host to a home meeting with Bangladesh five days later.

Afghanistan’s squad members ply their trade in a total of 14 nations, with the Germany-based quartet of Zubayr Amiri, Abassin Alikhil, Hassan Amin and uncapped goalkeeper Hellal Hosseini making it the most common home, ahead of the Afghan Premier League, which provides three players, all from champions Toofan Harirod,

Singapore will play their first two Group D fixtures on home soil, where they will host Yemen at the National Stadium on September 5, before facing Palestine at the Jalan Besar Stadium five days later.

The players, having rested for nearly three weeks, are set to return to action when they play their first match of the Asian Qualifiers against Afghanistan on September 10 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Head coach Jamie Day has made several changes to the 25-member preliminary squad from the one that defeated Laos in the first round of the Asian Qualifiers, adding six players and one new face.

The Nepalese travel to Kuwait on September 5 to challenge the hosts and 1980 AFC Asian Cup champions in their opening Group B Qualifiers. The West Asians represent a daunting task for Nepal. The first meeting between the two nations saw Kuwait triumph 5-0 in a 2000 AFC Asian Cup qualifier but nearly two decades on, Nepal, now coached by Swede Johan Kalin, showed what progress they have made when the pair reunited in a couple of friendlies in March.

What had been anticipated as one-sided matches turned out to be closely contested, with the strongly-favoured Kuwait held to a goalless draw on home soil in the first match, before managing a solitary-goal win.

The move sees the Brazilian-born forward become the first player without Chinese heritage to be called up by the East Asian powerhouse.

Elkeson, who never featured for Brazil’s senior team, is eligible to play for China after plying his trade in the country since 2013.