MUSCAT — Lack of cohesion, lack of determination, lack of polish at the finish…

All these factors summed up Oman’s poor show in the opening World Cup 2010 qualifier at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher yesterday.

Milan Macala-coached Bahrain were definitely the better team of the evening despite playing against all odds, which included a full-house attendance of partisan fans. In fact, they could have won by a bigger margin, instead of the 1-0 win they managed yesterday.

The atmosphere was perfect for a home match, with the Oman Football Association doing all that they could do to hand the national team with the best support in recent times. The whole stadium was painted red, but the firepower was lacking as the team surrendered without much fight.

What the Urguayan coach Julio Cesar Ribas fielded yesterday was practically the same set of players, who were handled with élan by Macala for the past four years, but the precision and game plan that had Oman do wonders on previous occasions were completely missing.

However, Macala stopped short of saying that Bahrain had played their best match.

“I feel good that we have got the three points and the important factor was that we were playing not against just 11 players but thousands of spectators too. I would have said satisfactory had they translated all the chances to goals.” But he was happy that he could prove one or two points with the victory.

“I wanted to prove some critics wrong, who had earlier mentioned that I was tactically wrong in the defeat against UAE in the Gulf Cup final. I have shown them that I still have better tactics and my boys have translated them to perfection,” said Macala in his post-match comments.

“But I must say that this match was not to prove my worth and I had told the players that this is not the match between two coaches but two national teams,” he added.

“We created three good chances, but they couldn’t be converted just because of the presence of Ali Al Habsi, who is indeed a towering figure. I admire this man’s abilities,” said Macala. “I also thank the people of Oman, who have supported me all the time I was here.”

On the contrary, Oman coach Ribas said: “We played well in the second half, but couldn’t get the all-important goal.” Ribas, in fact, wanted to say that Oman was the better team yesterday as they had the maximum ball possession, but he couldn’t say much on the lack of finishing power and cohesion among the players, which was evident from the start.

Only thing he had to say was “nothing is lost as yet as we have many more matches to play in this round”.

But he forgot the fact that he will not have the home advantage in the coming two matches to consolidate the team’s position. The team play Thailand next month in Bangkok and they also have to face the gritty Japanese later. Bahrain midfielders Abdulla Fatadi and Abdulla Omar were simply brilliant as they controlled the play whenever they had the ball and the opportunism of Ala’a Hubail made the difference in the ultimate analysis.

The all-important goal came in the 15th minute of play, when a melee resulting off a corner kick caught Ali Al Habsi off-guard for Ala’a Hubail to tap the ball into the net. Definitely a chaos created by Omani defence had Al Habsi going the other way.

All said and done, Oman need to improve leaps and bounds to reach the standard they had set under the guidance of Macala, who has begun well in taking Bahrain to South Africa. Bahrain now hosts Japan next and Macala’s assistant Khalid Attaz said: “We will try to make use of the home advantage.”