Muscat: A confident Oman team will aim for a victory to get closer to accomplishing the dream and qualifying for the World Cup as they will meet China in Group B fifth round for the AFC Asian qualifiers – Road to Qatar. The match kicks off at 7:00 pm at the Sharjah Stadium.
A win over the Dragon team will raise the Sultanate of Oman’s tally to nine points and will reduce the gap to three points in case the group topper Saudi Arabia is defeated by Australia while the latter’s defeat will equalize the points to nine points.
The Red Warriors’ head coach Branko Ivankovic is fully aware of the difficulty of the fixture. The opponent China managed to win against Vietnam in Sharjah. The triumph will keep alive their hopes in competing for the direct two tickets in the group.
Despite the ‘Red Warriors’ unstable campaign till now in the group, Ivankovic’s men focused to reached the ninth point. The team had a short preparatory camp in Dubai ahead of the two crucial assignments against
China and Asian heavyweight Japan on Tuesday in Muscat.
The training sessions abroad witnessed focused sessions on different tactical and technical sides. The coaching staff prepared the players with mixture of attacking and defensive techniques ahead of the significant forthcoming clashes.
Red Warriors are high on confidence after their significant victory in the last round against Vietnam 3-1 in Muscat. The Oman team is currently third in the group with nine points and they are favorites to get past their rivals who are fifth with three points.
It is expected that coach Ivankovic will depend in today’s fixture on the experienced goalkeeper Fayez al Rusheidi, Amjad al Harthi, Juma al Habsi, Harib al Saadi, Khalid al Hajri, Essam al Subhi and besides other squad members. The Croatian coach may well begin the encounter with similar starting line up to the previous fixture against Vietnam.
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