Muscat, Nov 11 - The national football team edged Muscat club 1-0 in a preparatory match at Seeb Stadium on Tuesday. The solitary goal in the match was scored by the striker Khalid al Hajri. The friendly match was part of the “Red Warriors” camp for gearing up for the forthcoming matches of the 2022 World Cup Joint Qualification matches which was shifted to 2021.
In related news, the AFC announced on Wednesday the dates of the 2022 World Cup Joint Qualification matches. According to the-AFC.com website, the Asian Qualifiers Round 2 matches should be completed by June 15, 2021 with Match Day 7 and 8 in March 2021 and Match Day 9 and 10 in June 2021 with the Final Round of the Asian Qualifiers beginning in September 2021. The 10 match days of the Asian Qualifiers Final Round, in collaboration with Fifa, should be finished by the end of March 2022 with the Asian and Inter-Continental Play-offs proposed for the Fifa Window May/June in 2022. The Asian Play-off for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 is proposed as a single match.
Back to the ‘Red Warriors’ camp, the Croatian coach Branko Ivankovic tested during the match different faces of the team for better evaluation on their technical performance. The next match of the national football team is against the Olympic team on Friday at Seeb Stadium. It is expected that Ivankovic will continue on giving equal chances for the most called players to the internal camp and do the right technical evaluation to select the kick off list.
Coach Branko focused during the previous training sessions on many attacking and tactical solutions. The ongoing camp featured sessions on creating the scoring chances, quick passes, receiving short passes and delivering the balls to the teammates and many other tactical sessions on converting the scoring chances into goals.
Ivankovic has called up 28 players for the domestic camp including: Fayez al Rushaidi, Mohammed al Musalami, Harib al Saadi, Abdullah Fawaz, Salah al Yahyaee, Ahmed al Khamisi, Yazeed al Mashani, Moutaz Saleh, Ahmed Faraj, Eid al Farsi, Amjad al Harthi, Zahir al Aghbri, Khalid al Buraiki, Abdulaziz al Ghailani, Omar al Fazari, Essam al Subhi, Ahmed al Kaabi, Ali al Rushaidi, Fahmi Said, Ibrahim Saleh, Mohammed al Dheeb, Arshed al Alawi, Abbas al Hashami, Mohsin Jawher, Khalid al Hajri, Omran al Hedi, Abdulaziz al Maqbali and Ali al Busaidy.
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