Second-half substitute Mahmood Abdulrahman, who also scored the winning goal in the previous meeting between the two sides in Tashkent, struck in the 74th minute at Bahrain National Stadium to secure the three points for the Gulf nation.

Bahrain finish their qualifying campaign in Group A in third place and will tackle Saudi Arabia in a play-off in September with the winner of that encounter taking on New Zealand for a place in South Africa.

While the hosts had enjoyed large spells of dominance in this encounter, Macala admitted he was always fearful of the Uzbeks, who needed to win to keep their own qualification hopes alive.

"The game was hard for both sides as winning was the only hope for them to maintain their chances and qualify to the play-offs," he said.

"Uzbekistan are a strong team and we had some tough moments before scoring the goal.

"A 0-0 draw was a dangerous result and we lost a lot of chances which could have cost us the game. In the first half we found a lot of spaces and that’s why we created several chances.

"In the second period, they fixed their mistakes and they closed these spaces. The performance of Uzbekistan improved and they put a lot of pressure on us.

"We played with two strikers but this doesn’t mean that we could have scored easily. The most important thing is to create chances for these strikers so that they can score."

Uzbekistan coach Mirjalal Kasimov felt a number of mistakes in defence ultimately cost his side.

"The game put an end to our campaign in the qualifiers," he said.

"Bahrain are a strong team and the temperature affected us and that’s why we had to play with only one striker.

"We couldn’t play with two strikers because this could have cost us a lot in the back and we should have put a lot of effort in this hot weather," he said.

"We made a lot of mistakes especially in defence in the first-half. However, the performance at the back improved in the second-half while the attack remained the same."

Despite the defeat, Kasimov reserved praise for his opponents, adding: "Bahrain have improved much from the previous period when I played against them when I was a player and coach Macala has done good work with them."