12 players named in the men's squad for the Asian Games

The technical staff of the men's national team settled on 12 players for the Asian Games in China, running from 23 September to 8 October.

The squad: Rashed Ayman, Hamed Abdullatif, Rashed Salem, Faisal Mohammed, Omar Khalid, Rashed Al Zaabi, Jasim Mohammed, Khalid Khalifa, Qais Omar, Mahmoud Wasim, Hazza Omar and Abdulaziz Khalifa. The technical and administrative staff comprises Dr Mounir Ben Habib as technical director, assisted by Salem Ateeq and Jasim Abdulridha, with Rashed Abdullah Al Naqbi as team manager and Ali Al Hammadi as administrator.

The team held its final session on Thursday evening at Al Nasr club in Dubai before flying to China in the early hours of Friday, with Dr Ben Habib and his staff working on specific technical and physical points.

Rashed Abdullah Al Naqbi underlined the strength of the Asian Games field and its place in the team's preparation: “We play Iran on the 26th, Kazakhstan on the 28th and Saudi Arabia on the 30th. If we finish second in the group we meet the third-placed team from the second group, which has Lebanon, Guam and Chinese Taipei. We regard this tournament as an important preparation phase.”

The national teams director added: “After this comes the Arab Championship in Egypt in December, then the Dubai International, then the Asian qualifiers, which we are arranging properly. We thank the federation president and the vice president, who chairs the national teams committee, for their considerable efforts in preparing the team and providing the right environment.”

“What we fear is injuries at this important point before the Asian qualifiers,” he said.