Owning a place at the FIFA World Cup™ is a dream of any nation, with even the greatest teams feeling nervous when they finally seal their spot. Imagine, then, the allure of the competition for 
A modest island state with a small population off the western shores of the Persian Gulf, Bahrain almost made their dream ttwice but sadly denied at the last.
Bahrain first caught the eye in football circles with a fourth-place finish at the 1989 FIFA U-17 World Cup, a year after the senior team had graced their maiden AFC Asian Cup. Those performances showed that surface area and population size are far from everything, and allowed the Reds to look upon the future with optimism.
Dreams of Germany
Bahrain returned to the Asian Cup in 2004, when they advanced all the way to the semi-finals before losing 4-3 to Japan and ultimately finishing fourth. That superb campaign in China PR marked the birth of a golden generation, and the islanders were soon steeling themselves for a tilt at a World Cup place in the Asian qualifiers.
The Reds turned heads again on the road to Germany 2006, making life difficult for several teams that had already graced the world’s grandest stage. Sealing third spot in their group in the last round of qualifiers, Bahrain earned themselves an intercontinental play-off against Trinidad and Tobago.
The one remaining obstacle in their path were intercontinental play-off opponents New Zealand, but Bahrain found themselves haunted by the demons of their Trinidad and Tobago loss. They could manage no better than a 0-0 draw at home and then missed a penalty in Wellington before conceding at the other end, that goal leaving the Asian side crestfallen for the second time in succession.
On the rankings front, Bahrain’s sterling campaign lifted them back up to 60 at the close of 2009, but they promptly began plummeting again, dropping out of the top 100 in 2011 and concluding 2014 as low as 122.
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