On February 27, in the city of Manama, at the Khalifa Sport City arena, the men's national basketball team of Kazakhstan will hold the first meeting with the team of Bahrain as part of the qualification for the 2023 World Cup. The match starts at 22:00 Nur-Sultan time.

The Bahrain men's basketball team - is the national basketball team that represents Bahrain in international 5x5 basketball tournaments. Member of FIBA ​​since 1975.

The Bahrain national team does not have a lot of experience in the international arena. They have not competed in the Olympics and World Championships/Cups. The Bahrain team has qualified for the continental championship 8 times. Their first performance at the Asian Championship took place in 1977, after that in 1979 and further in 1987, 1991, 1997, 1999, 2011 and 2013. Our future rivals did not achieve much success in this tournament, and their best result to date is tenth place in 1997. In 2011 and 2013, they were ranked 15th and 12th respectively. The Bahrain national team has never played in the FIBA ​​Asia Challenge. The Bahrain team participated in the Asian Games three times - in 1978, 1982 and 2006. They finished tenth in 1982 and this is their best result. In the regional competition - the Championship among the Arab States of the Persian Gulf, the Bahrain team became a winner several times, winning silver and bronze medals, but never climbed to the top step of the podium.


Comparison of teams and history of meetings: In the FIBA ​​rating, the Kazakhstan team overtakes the Bahrain team. Kazakhstanis are on the 70th line in the world and 11th in Asia. Bahrain, after two defeats in the first window of the Asian Qualifier for the World Cup, has dropped a couple of places in the world rankings and now occupies 104th position, while in Asia they have retained their 21st line. Between themselves in official tournaments, the teams met only once. In 2013, in the Philippines, the teams clashed at the group stage of the Asian Championship, then the Kazakh team won, but only in overtime - 79:76. It is worth noting that Rustam Murzagaliev, Alexander Zhigulin and Nikolai Bazhin participated in that game from the current roster of the Steppenwolfs. Thus, in a personal confrontation, Kazakhstanis are leading with a score of 1:0.


Roster of opponents: Five players of the current Bahrain team took part in the only face-to-face meeting against the Kazakh team, including one of the leaders Chester Gilles, who has a very rich career behind him. He is a native of the United States and began his professional career in his homeland, having managed to play in the NBA Development League in the Los Angeles D-Fenders and Sioux Falls Skyforce teams. A few years later he returned briefly to the US and played for the Winchester Knicks, but spent the rest of his time in Asia. Before Bahrain, he managed to play in the Philippines, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. In addition, he spent part of the time in China, Indonesia and Tunisia, and became the Champion and owner of the Bahrain Cup, and the champion of Lebanon. Ahmed Akber has spent almost his entire career with Al-Manama from Bahrain. Mohamed Kawaid, in addition to teams from Bahrain, appeared in the Malta Championship. Mohamed Ebrahim and Subah Azzam, who, like previous players, played against Kazakhstan in 2013, play and played for clubs from Bahrain. Maitham Isa, in addition to the national championship, performed in Kuwait. Experienced Ahmed Haji and young Muzamil Hamuda had experience playing in the American student league. All other players played only in the professional teams of Bahrain: experienced Hesham Sarhan, Yusuf Mohamed Almurbaty, Mohammed Hamuda, Ali Rabia, Mohamed Buallay and Mohamed Kurban. In addition, a whole galaxy of young players were announced for the team, some of whom played in the Bahrain youth team - Noman Khan, Ali Jaber Kadim, Nadir Nasser, Ali Rashid, Ahmed Ali, Ahmed Dindayneh, Hasan Maki and Mustafa Rashid.

Rival leaders: The leader of the Bahrain national team is center Chester Gilles. In addition to him, the leaders of the Bahraini team are defender Maitham Isa, and forwards Mohamed Kawaid and Mohammed Hamuda. Defender Mohamed Ebrahim has good statistics, but he was not on the list for the last match against Syria. The main line-up of our rivals also includes defenders Hesham Sarhan, Ahmed Hadji and forward Subah Azzam. In addition, in the last game with Syria, for the first time in this qualification, center Ahmed Akber entered the court.


Head coach: If the Bahrain national team is a "dark horse" for us, then our head coach, Darko Russo, is very familiar with this team, because in 2019 it was he who headed the coaching staff of Bahrain and led him to the bronze medals of the Championship among the Arab States of the Persian bay. The current coach of the national team, American specialist Sam Vincent, replaced Darko Russo as the head coach of the Bahrain national team. James Samuel Vincent started his career as an NBA player with the Boston Celtics. In addition to Boston, Sam played in the Seattle Super Sonics, the Chicago Bulls - with Michael Jordan himself and the Orlando Magic. He completed his playing career in the Greek “Aris”. He began his coaching career in Europe in the Greek club "Gymnasticos S. Larissas", and was also a coach in the Dutch team "Eiffel Tower Dan Bosch". In his home country of the United States of America in 2001, he led the newly formed Mobile Revelers in the Development League and achieved excellent results, reaching the semi-finals in his first season and winning the League in his second season. But the Mobile team lasted only a couple of seasons, and Sam Vincent, after one season of "rest", led another NBA Development League team - the Fort Worth Flyers. And with this team, success awaited him, he immediately made it to the league finals. The Dallas Mavericks became interested in Sam and the next season he was an assistant in the coaching staff of the Dallas team in the NBA, and after another season he headed the NBA club Charlotte Bobcats. But after that, he returned to the NBA Development League to the Anaheim Arsenal team. After that, he led the team from the Dominican Republic "Leones de Santiago", and then spent a long time in the professional teams of Bahrain in the teams "Al-Manama", "Al-Ahly" and "Al-Riffa". In addition to professional clubs, Sam Vincent led the Nigerian women's team, with which he became the champion of AfroBasket in 2003 and 2005, he also led the Nigerian team at the Olympic Games in Greece in 2004. In 2017, Sam again led the coaching staff of the Nigerian women's team and won the AfroBasket for the third time, and after that he headed the Bahrain men's national team.

Standings: After Kazakhstan's sensational victory over Iran, our team topped the Group D table with three wins in three games. Bahrain and Syria in order to bypass the Kazakhs need to win all their remaining matches, but they will still have one face-to-face meeting. Thus, even with the most negative outcomes of the remaining matches in our group, the Steppenwolfs will not go below third place, that is, our team has completed the minimum program and has already secured participation in the second round. But we need to win as many games as possible, because more wins will bring more tournament points into our luggage for the second round. Bahrain has a diametrically opposite position - three defeats in three matches and the last place in the table and every match is extremely important for them.

The match will take place on Sunday, February 27, in the city of Manama at the Khalifa Sports City arena, starting at 22:00 Nur-Sultan time. All information about the match, lineups, news, photo and video reports, as well as statistics will be published in the Match Center. Online broadcast of the game will be available on the main page of our website.

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The National Basketball Federation of Kazakhstan expresses gratitude for the support and assistance in preparing the team for participation in the tournament to the National Olympic Committee, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, the "Samruk Kazyna" National Welfare Fund, the "Sport Qory" Tourism and Sports Industry Support Fund and the Nur-Sultan City Akimat. General sponsor of the National Basketball Team of Kazakhstan - "M-Sport" LLP, sponsors - "Capital City Center" LLP and "Begtas NS" Firm, technical partner - "Transtelecom" JSC, partner - "Kokshe Susyndary" company with the "Prima Naturale" trademark.