THIS is very much a business stay for Bahrain.
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The Arab state’s national football team arrived in Creswick near daybreak on Sunday and will stay in the township until mid next week to iron out its Asian Cup tactics.
Rather than community camp-style visits of domestic sporting franchises in the region, Bahrain is here solely focused on training for its soccer pinnacle.
The team is expected to host three open-training sessions in Ballarat.
The 23-player squad hit the pitch at the Ballarat Regional Soccer Facility in Morshead Park on Sunday evening to get started and stretch out after a long-haul flight overnight.
They otherwise remained low-key and were resting at their team base, Novotel Forest Resort Creswick, on Sunday.
The team is set to train twice daily at Morshead Park with altered scheduling around two practice matches – a clash against Saudi Arabia in Geelong on Tuesday and hosting Jordan in Ballarat this Sunday.
The Bahrain campaign starts on January 11 in a group C match against Iran at AAMI Park before preliminary matches in Canberra and Sydney.
