MUSCAT: The Oman national football team players commenced their training sessions in the domestic camp on Tuesday to mark their preparations for the opening match against Chinese Taipei on November 16 in Muscat before meeting Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek city on November 21 in the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2 for Fifa World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027 besides 2024 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar campaign.
The practice sessions took place at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in presence of all the players except Al Nahda players who joined the training on the second day of the camp following their match against Syria’s Al Futuwa club in AFC Cup which ended in favour of the Oman’s representative to keep their top spot in the group.
Al Nasr player Mahmood Mabrook trained individually in the first training session as per the instructions from the coaching staff. He was suffering from some light injury that required some special physical training. Salah al Yahayei’s injury status will be determined by the medical team and it will decide his selection in the squad.
The opening warm-up session began with a message from coach Branko Ivankovic who affirmed focusing on the coming assignment and to gain the desired technical outcomes from this gathering to shape their readiness for the forthcoming matches. Later, the players performed some physical training under supervision of the fitness coach before moving to the technical and tactical training sessions under the direct supervision of Branko. The session concluded with a match in the centre of the green field as players were distributed into two groups.
Oman’s striker Zaher al Aghbari affirmed that this domestic camp is very crucial as the team will prepare for the first match against Chinese Taipei on November 16 in Muscat. “Our focus is now on the first match to collect the three points and think about the next match. We are very glad that the number of Asian teams are increased for the Fifa World Cup but again we have to take match by match until reaching our goal,” he told Oman Observer during the training session.
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