Salmeen ruled out of Asian Cup

JAKARTA - Bahrain coach Milan Macala has confirmed that key midfielder Mohammed Salmeen will miss this year's AFC Asian Cup due to an ankle injury.

Salmeen suffered the injury while playing for Al Arabi in the Qatar league and while he is on the road to recovery, it was felt that he needed more time to regain his fitness, much to the disappointment of the Czech coach.

"It's really a pity that we will miss him in the tournament as he needs nearly six months to recover," said Macala who turned 64 five days ago.

"Salmeen has a lot of experience that we need but we can't do anything now. He is at the moment with the team in Jakarta but he cannot play.”

But while Bahrain will not have the services of Salmeen, they have received some positive news with the Nigerian-born duo of Jaycee John Akwani and Abdulla Fatadi cleared to play for them in the tournament.

"Both Jaycee and Abdulla are players for the future. They have great talent and skills but what they lack is international experience and we have to be patient to get the best out of them," Macala said.

The veteran coach is hoping that his previous Asian Cup experience will prove useful to the team at this year's tournament.

"It is my fourth Asian Cup competition," he said at the end of the team’s official training session at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium on Sunday.

“My first Asian Cup was in 1996 with Kuwait and we lost to Iran on penalties. The Asian Cup is an excellent event and I hope that the experience I had will be good for the team.

"The tournament is very important for us as it will help us a lot. Even if we don't have good results it will be good for us to prepare the team for the World Cup qualifiers which will start after the tournament.

"We came here with a good team but the problem is that our preparations were not ideal. Just like in Oman's case, Bahrain have a lot of players who play abroad so it was hard to prepare the team and group them together. There were some players who joined the team on June 25 as they were still playing in Kuwait Emir's Cup.

"I just hope that the players will be prepared and everyone knows their responsibilities," he concluded.

Bahrain will begin their Asian Cup against co-hosts Indonesia in Jakarta on Tuesday before taking on Korea Republic on July 15 and Saudi Arabia three days later.