Oriented on making people closer

Head coach of the Turkmenistan national football team, Mergen Orazov, commented on the team’s readiness for the qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup.

– The football players are not in very good physical condition at the moment. We are working on this now. But in general, we are slowly establishing mutual understanding between the players and an understanding of the tactics we want to use.

The specialist also shared his opinion regarding friendly matches held as part of training camps in the UAE:

– Friendly games are a very good assessment of our work, but at the same time a good indicator of our mistakes. After each game, we work on mistakes and this is the only way we can count on progress. "Shabab Al-Ahli" showed us in which direction we still need to work.

Let us remind you that the Turkmenistan national football team has been at the training camp in the UAE since October 8. As part of the training camp, the team has already played two friendly matches, beating Dubai United, a team from the first division of the UAE Championship, with a score of 3:1 and losing to the current champion of the Emirati League, Shabab Al Ahli, 4:1.

On October 18, Mergen Orazov’s team will hold the final match against the Emirati “Ajman”, after which they will return to Turkmenistan.

Let us recall that according to the results of the draw for the second round of the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament, which took place in July, the Turkmenistan national team found itself in group “E”, where it will play with the teams of Iran, Uzbekistan, as well as the winner of the first qualifying round pair Hong Kong - Bhutan.

On November 16, the Turkmenistan national team will begin its journey in the second round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying tournament with a home match against the Uzbekistan team.

ORIENT news

Photo: press service of the Turkmenistan national football team