Alkass Digital
Qatar will look to gain more confidence before heading for the CONCACAF Gold Cup as they take on New Zealand in their final friendly in Austria, today.
The match will be played at Sonnensee Stadion in Ritzing with the kick off set for 7pm (Qatar time).
The Asian champions will be looking to maintain their winning form against the All Whites after they defeated Jamaica 2-1 in a friendly on Thursday.
They lost to Croatia 1-0 in their first friendly on June 8, on the sidelines of their training camp in Austria that got underway on July 2.
Following the game against New Zealand, head coach Carlos Queiroz, who selected a 26-player squad for the Austria training camp, will pick a final 23-man squad for the Gold Cup which will start later this month in the US and Canada.
The team is scheduled to depart tomorrow for the US, where it will be based for their matches in Group B also involving CONCACAF giants Mexico, Haiti and Honduras.
Qatar midfielder Tariq Salman said the training camp in Austria gave Al Annabi good preparation before the Gold Cup, which he rated a tough tournament.
“We have difficult challenge in presence of tough teams in the group, but hopefully we will be ready for it,” Salman said following win over Jamaica.
“The coach has given all players the opportunity during the two friendly matches and we have one more match to go. Our preparation for the tournament has been good and we are confident to give a strong performance in the tournament,” he added.
Al Annabi will play against Haiti in their first match of the tournament at Houston’s NRG Stadium on June 26 at 1:00am (Qatar time).
They will take on Honduras in their second match at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on June 30 before wrapping up their group campaign with a match against Mexico at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on July 3.
This is the second time that Qatar will feature in the Gold Cup as a guest side after they appeared in the tournament for the first time in 2021. Al Annabi reached the semi-final on their debut, losing to eventual champions US.