Saudi Arabia

Win at all costs

So Prince Sultan bin Fahad, President of Youth Welfare, had a long chat with our national coach Jose Peseiro. I assume the conversation lasted 10 seconds with Prince Sultan saying something like “You win the next 4 games or your ass is out of here faster than you can say “revolving door” ” and then Jose turns around and leaves without argument.

But in reality, what can Mr.Peseiro do to improve the National team?

Well, for starters Naif Hazazi has to become a starter in every match. WTF Jose was thinking when he benched him versus South Korea is beyond me.

Abdullah Al-Zouri needs to go. He’s decent at best and ineffective at worst and during the whole North Korea match he was punting crosses straight into the first defender. For a replacement, you place Abdullah Shuhail as he can play both right and left back (quite rare) and place fellow Shabab player Hassan Muath in the vacant right back position. Alternatively you can place Wehda’s highly rated Kamel Al-Mur in that position. He’s a beast going forward and destroying opposing wingbacks but will give away needless fouls near the box with some atrocious tackling and seeing how we’re weak against set pieces this isn’t desirable.

If we keep Shuhail at right back the other two choices for left back are Kamel Al Mousa and Talal Khaibari both of Al Wehda. Kamel was the first choice left back before Zouri came along and he’s much better going forward as well as a decent free kick taker. Talal is the best left back in Saudi Arabia at the moment in my opinion and is well balanced in both attack and defense but he’s old (31 years old) and he’s currently out with a long term injury.

In the midfield, there’s no excuse not to play Wehda’s (seeing a bias here? ) Ahmed Al-Mousa as he is clearly the best right winger in Saudi Arabia. What’s even stranger is that we don’t have a right winger in the squad at all now! Mohammed Noor trying his best to play in an unfamiliar position against both Koreas.

As for strikers, Saad Al Harthi,Saleh Basheer and Malek Mauth should all be fit by the time of the Bahrain match. So their performance in the league and friendly matches should determine who gets to wear the green (or white) shirt in the crucial play off matches.

Good luck to Jose Peseiro in attempting to dodge the unemployment line!