Bahraini players led by Milan Macala the Czech Coach who knows all about soccer in the Arabian Gulf Countries since he has been a coach for Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman spending most of his experienced age in GCC.

Honestly this game were almost in the hands of the Bahrainis but we were saved by luck and our excellent Goalie Waleed Abdullah who should have been chosen as the star of the match for he was put into the test and managed to dodge more dangerous balls rather than the Bahraini Goal Keeper.

Pesiero proved to be lacking the right tactics and did not prepare the Saudis well with few friendly matches in which the Saudis lost to Oman 2-1 and beaten Malaysia 2-1. In this match against Bahrain he surprised us in playing with three defense midfielders allowing great pressure on central back and left and right backs too that resulted in dangerous attacks on the Goalie that any of these Bahraini attempts could have secure a goal to the Bahrainis.

Moreover Pesiero called on Tayseer Al Jassim but quite late (a brilliant attacking midfielder and play maker) to support forwards and managed in the little remaining time to push for quick attacks that was enough to take the lead for us but Nasser Al Shamrani (replaced Malek Muath) did his usual selfish shots whilst other players had taken better positions.

The loss of Hazzazi (injured) and with Yasser Al Qahtani’s struggle to be in his best form also Nasser Al Shamrani’s inability to score a single goal since he started as a replacement for either Malek or Yasser, Pesiero should have been trying new talents like Abdulaziz Al Saaran who his shine was stunning in last year’s Saudi Premier League.

I predict the good ol’ 4-4-2 formation. No real reason to change that one.

In goal will most certainly be Waleed Abdullah. He’s been dependable between the sticks in all his appearances and has pretty much cemented his place.

Right back will be Hasan Mauth. This is strange as this is usually Shuhail’s spot but I’ll elaborate later.

Center back will Osama Hawsawi of course but I don’t know who his partner will be. Will it be Naif Al Qadi? Majed Al Mershedi? or maybe former AFC Player of the Year Hamad Al Montashiri? All of them were given minutes to play during the recent friendly against Malaysia.

Left back will most likely be Abdullah Al Shuhail. That’s right! Our regular right back is playing left back! This is actually his preferred position at his club Al Shabab with his team mate Hasan Mauth playing right back.

Midfield will consist of Ahmed Otaif after coming back from the one match ban against North Korea. I don’t know who will be his partner. Most likely the experienced Saud Khariri but I’d wager Tayseer Al Jasim will feature somewhere considering the brace he scored against the last time we faced Bahrain competitively.

Left Midfield will go to Hussein Abdul Ghani. AbdulRahman Al-Qahtani is injured so Abdul Ghani will move up a bit from his preferred left back role to fit in.

Right midfield is going to be Mohammed Noor. This is not his preferred position and I can’t see why Ahmed Al Mousa isn’t in the squad yet to fill this crucial position.

The forward line is most likely going to be Malek Mauth and Yasser Al Qahtani. Malek showed good form by scoring against Malaysia and is in good form for his club. Yasser isn’t so hot right now but with the injury of Naif Hazazi there’s really no one else to take his place.

Well, that’s it. Good luck to Saudi Arabia tonight!

While, this is a huge blow to the Green Falcons, it’s not as bad as it seems at first. Saudi Arabia has always had strikers in abundance. Malek Mauth came on for Hazazi and showed good form to find the net in his first match for the NT after recovering from his injury. Saad Al Harthi has also finally overcame his own cruciate ligament injury and featured for his club Al-Nasr by scoring a brace in their 9-0 demolition of lowly Al-Watani in the Prince Faisal Cup.

We wish good luck to Naif and hope he still has a chance to feature in the 2010 World Cup.

But now that the Bahrain match is close at hand the FA has released the squad list for the Bahrain match.

Goal Keepers: Waleed Abdullah, Mabrouk Zaid, Mansour Najei

Defenders:Redha Tuker,Osama Hawsawi,Majed Mershedi,Naif Qadi,Hamad Muntashiri,Abdullah Shuhail,Abdullah Al Zouri,Hasan Mauth,Mohammed Massad

Midfielders:Tayseer Al Jasem,Manaf Abu Shugeir,Saud Kariri,Ahmed Otaif,Abdul Latif Al Ghannam,Hussein Abdul Ghani, Mohammed Al Shalhoub,Mohamed Noor, Abdul Rahman Al Qahtani.

Forwards:Yasser Qahtani,Malek Mauth,Nasser Al Shamrani,Abul Aziz Al Saraan,Naif Hazazi

All in all, it’s a decent list but there’s some players that should be added.

Ahmed Al Mousa is a player I talk about a lot and I do come across as some sort of club zealot (I support Al Wehda where Mousa plays) but he played great in the first two rounds of the SPL and the national team sorely lacks a natural right winger.

Another person I think can slot in the squad list is Ahmed’s brother Kamel Al Mousa who plays at left back and is much better in both attack and defense than the current incumbent Abdullah Al Zouri. Sure, I’m disseminating Al Wehda propaganda again but there’s a reason Kamel was given the Al Wehda captaincy.

Saad Al Harthi should be in place over the unreliable Nasser Al Shamrani but seeing as he just came off a long term injury and isn’t playing regular club football.

Yasser Al Qahtani still hasn’t found his sizzling form from a couple years back but here’s hoping he manages to find it before the Bahrain match.

Good luck to the Green Falcons in their playoff bout and I promise to update more regularly from now on.

It’s that time of the year again where nothing of interest happens in footy except club transfers.

And while there is quite some time until the boys in green take on Bahrain in our third place playoff match (September to be exact) I thought it would be nice to pass the summer with some re-assuring statistics skewed and biased to show your own superiority…you know, the best kind of stats!

In FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches, Bahrain has never defeated Saudi Arabia (never mind the fact that we only played them 3 times total in WCQ matches) with the last coming way back in 2001 in the Bahraini capital of Manama where Saudi Arabia triumphed 4-0.

The last official non friendly game played against Bahrain was at the 2007 AFC Asian Cup where we memorably secured a 4-0 victory with goals coming from Ahmed Al Mousa,Yasser Al Qahtani and a brace from the under-rated Tayseer Al-Jasim.

That’s not to say we should under-estimate Bahrain, they did a great job getting third in a group where Japan and Australia pretty much guaranteed the top two spots automatically and Jose should be wary of complacency amongst the players.

Now for some re-assuring statistics from FIFA:
Head to Head record
Bahrain——Saudi Arabia
5 W 15
8 D 8
24 GS 47

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!

Korea DPR a team with a lot of discipline in defense booked its place in the first World Cup to happen in the African Continent by their goaless draw in Riyadh, a rewarding result for the North Koreans with one point extra than Saudi Arabia helped Korea DPR to automatically qualify to South Africa 2010 being in the 2nd place from Asia’s Group B below group leaders South Korea.

In looking at the Saudi players’ unspeakable performance starting from obvious low spirit probably due to unwary preparation by the administrative staffs those were always above any suspicions for years and sarcastically remain on their seats no matter what!

Having said that, let’s not forget how the team had witnessed disappointments in the World Cup results starting from 98 in France, 02 in Korea-Japan, and 06 in Germany but still rely on the same people despite their confession of failure on public TV after taking the exit in 2006 instead of handing over their resignation they are still manning the Saudi NT and that’s what we call an immunity.

The Saudis of course dominated majority of the 90 minutes and had some reasonable chances to score from but all were denied by Ri Myong-gok the brilliant goalie of DPR Korea, meanwhile Walid Abdullah the brave Saudi Goalie also denied two remarkable shots by the only two chances for the Koreans.

Peseiro the coach who managed to revitalize the team’s spirit and got the team to play an attacking football too was one of the main reasons of losing this showdown in King Fahad Stadium for he failed to select an ideal set of players for this extremely important final match.

The Portuguese Manager also committed two more severe mistakes when he played by two defense midfielders against a team as such playing only to keep their net intact with 8 players in defense the whole time, in addition to that when we didn’t see Tyaseer Al Jassim a midfielder with an attacking capabilities to replace Mohammed Noor who was not able to support forward players and show us some of his playmaking skills, also the Snipper striker Yasser Al-Qahtani was unlucky and spoiled a chance or two by not knowing where to position himself, the only one who managed to pull-off great moments was The Falcon (The new Saudi Hit-man) forward Naif Hazazi.

Peseiro confessed during the post match press conference that he is the one to be blamed and that the Saudi team didn’t lose with him till now, promising to qualify to the World Cup through Bahrain and New Zealand.

We’ve stuck with a pretty orthodox 4-4-2 during the whole campaign so that’s what I’m assuming we use tomorrow as well.

First up in goal is most likely gonna be Waleed Abdullah. An easy choice to make as it looks we finally have someone to fill in the boots of Mohamed Dayeaya as Waleed has only been improving with each game and almost singlehandedly managed to save us from defeat against South Korea last time around.

At right back is Abdullah Shuhail and he’s been pretty good for us in this position and much better than Mohamed Nami who replaced him for a couple matches. Shuhail’s only weakness is that he joins the attack a bit too much leaving some space in the back, luckily we have two DMs to sort this matter out.

First center back would have to be Osama Hawsawi. What can I say about this guy that hasn’t been said already? the other center backs have kept rotating and he’s stayed which shows how consistent and focused he’s been all season long for both Al Hilal and the Saudi NT. Legend.

Second center back is Naif Al Qadi. Naif has been in and out of the NT several times before but a determined effort at the heart of Al Shabab’s defense this season has shown us what a good player he really is. If he was paired with a better CB Al Shabab will have a fearsome defense. Anyway, his main problem is that he’s a recent call up and hasn’t quite gelled with Hawsawi yet.

Left back is Abdullah Al-Zouri since he’s pretty much got that position locked down. He isn’t amazing but left backs are a rare breed wherever you are and in Saudi Arabia they’re even rarer. Zouri is decent enough and I can’t think of anyone to replace him.

Defensive midfield is skipper Hussein Abdul Ghani, Hussein has always been a hardworking player and as the team’s sole dead ball specialist he’s a shoe in for a starting place. He’s not much of a “defensive” midfielder and this clashed last game with Ahmed Ateef as both were very attacking DMs but this should be resolved next game since…

Khaled Aziz is the other starting DM after Ahmed Ateef was suspended last game and he should cover for Hussein Abdul Ghani’s roaming style of play.

Abdul Rahman Al Qahtani is probably going to be the starting left winger after Abdoh Ateef was injured ,and while I’ll probably sound like a hugely insensitive prick for saying this, this is a good thing as A.R. Al Qahtani is by far the better player with skill on the ball and speed on the wing coupled with some great crossing ability.

Mohammed Noor is going to start on the right wing where he is out of position like in the South Korea game. However, if Peseiro lets him drift towards the center a little more he can use his physicality to harass the North Korean defense.

finally Naif Hazazi and Yasser Al Qahtani are best suited to playing upfront with Naif being the target man and Yasser the striker. There really isn’t any reason not to play Naif from the start given that he’s been our hero this qualification round and Nasser Al Shamrani, the only other candidate, is a bottler.

Anyway, that’s my predicted line up and hopefully whoever plays will do the Saudi shirt proud.

José Peseiro gave his pre-match press conference and stated that he was confident that the team had what it takes to beat DPR Korea and clinch the final qualifying spot.

However, he warned against complacency in front of the Koreans who have one of the strongest defensive lines in the qualifying stages ( 4th behind South Korea,Japan and Australia) and the fact that they only need a draw to guarantee qualification. He also downplayed the fact that the North Koreans are unaccustomed to playing in hot weather, noting that the attacking team (this being Saudi Arabia) will suffer more fatigue in trying to go for goal rather than a defensive team.

When asked why he chose Mohamed Nami as starting right back against Iran and UAE when Hilal are looking to offload the player Peseiro simply replied that he’s Saudi Arabia’s coach, not Al Hilal’s.

And about the unavailability of the Ahmed and Abdoh Ateef he admitted it was a huge blow but will do his best to make up for it.

And finally, North Korean coach Kim-Jong Hun isn’t adapting to the weather very well, after delaying his team’s training session due to heat he had to cancel it altogether when a dust haze blew in!

The upcoming match against DPR Korea is sink or swim for the Saudi NT and the away game in Pyongyang cost previous coach Nasser Al Johar his job, which is not suprising when you play with 4 Attacking midfielders and a single striker.

The upcoming match is different however, Saudi Arabia are back on their feet thanks to new coach Jose Peserio with 2 wins and a draw firmly putting us in a position to secure qualification with a precious win against DPR Korea at home in Riyadh giving us the second automatic qualification spot. Playing the game at home in the middle of June will also likely help us (playing in North Korea in the middle of February showed some funny scarf styles on our players)

Players missing for the next match however are the brothers Abdoh and Ahmed Ateef set to miss the game with an injury and suspension respectively.

I don’t rate Abdoh very highly unlike his brother but my player assessments and expected line up will be revealed as we get closer to matchday.