The captain of the Turkmenistan national football team, Elman Tagayev, summed up the results of the friendly match of the national team with the Bahrain national team - 1:1.

– It is a great honor for me to be the captain of my country’s national team and to play under the leadership of Mergen Orazov. He made our team more tactical and coherent. We control the ball well, quickly go on a counterattack and create many scoring chances, - the press service of the Turkmen team quotes the midfielder as saying.

Tagayev also noted that in this match the Turkmenistan national team was unlucky with its execution.

- We could have scored two goals in the first half, but we couldn’t. We also dominated in the second half, but did not capitalize on our chances. The game ended in a draw - 1:1, although we deserved to win.

Within the framework of preparation for the 2026 World Cup qualifying matches, Turkmen football players played two friendly matches. On September 8, Mergen Orazov’s team lost away to the Indonesian team - 0:2, and on September 12, for the first time in their history, they tied with the Bahrain team - 1:1.

Let us remind that according to the results of the draw for the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament, the Turkmenistan national team was included in group “E”. The rivals of the Turkmen team were the national teams of Iran and Uzbekistan. The fourth participant in this group will be determined after the first round. It will be the winner of the Hong Kong – Bhutan match.

The Turkmenistan national team will begin the fight for reaching the final part of the 2026 World Cup with a home match against Uzbekistan, which will be on November 16, 2023.