According to a poll, 51.7% of the 67,730 who voted, thinks that Yasser Al Qahtani is the best ambitious striker for 2005 by his participation with the club and the national team.

The rest of the rankings are:

Saad Al Harthi: 44.9%

Ahmed Al Sewalih: 1.3%

Muhammad Ameen Haider: 0.8%

Muhammad Anbar: 0.7%

Eisa Al Mehyani: 0.5%

This is one of the best things the Saudi FA has done in a while, one of the reasons we did so poorly during the last world cup was our very poor preparations, during our pre world cup friendlies we played against the Brazilian reserve team,Denmark and Senegal. We also played in the Gulf Cup which we won in dramatic fashion.

As you can see this isn’t the proper preparation for the World Cup especially for a team that doesn’t have players in Europe!!!

Playing against European teams is a must, European teams have this weird jinx on us we always play badly against them. A good example of this is when we crashed and burned against Germany and Ireland yet we played very good football against Cameroon in the last World Cup.

In our WC group we have two European teams..yikes. But these friendlies will give us the necessary experience against Ukraine and Spain. We are already familiar with Tunisia’s style so it’s good we aren’t wasting our time to face North African teams.

Now it’s up to Paqueta to use these matches well, the time for experimenting with the team is done now he has to field the real deal.

For those wishing to see Saudi Arabia’s upcoming Friendlies please click here

Before we get into the games let me give you a little background leading up to the tournament, our new coach Paqueta made some controversial moves. First of all he didn’t call up influential captain Sami Al Jaber and midfield dynamo Mohammed Noor not to mention other regulars (Redha Takar,Mabrouk Zaid). Second of all he announced that he wants to experiment with the team.

With all do respect Mr. Paqueta we don’t have the time to experiment with the team, the World Cup is less than six months away!

Okay now that I’ve got that over with let’s begin with the games shall we? First up is the Finland game. This match was a close affair with Finland playing defensive football, there were few chances for both teams, Saudi opened the scoring from Mohammed Al Shalhoub’s beautiful free kick, after that the Saudi team pretty much dominated the game but again created few chances.

Then thanks to a combination of poor defending and some nice skills, Roiha equalized for Finland in the dying minutes of the game. The match ended 1-1 and left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth as Saudi clearly were the better side.

Next up was Greece who are in my opinion a much better team than Finland, the fist half was an even affair but in the second half the Saudi started to push up and attack which lead to the Greek team to create some dangerous counter attacks.

Greece took the lead thanks to a penalty kick, after they took the lead the Saudi really began to step up and create some dangerous chances, then finally in the 92ed minutes Khalid Aziz’s shot found it’s way to the net. Well I am not gonna say that the Saudis were the better team in this match but they clearly deserved something out of it.

Now after watching both game I can tell you that the Saudi team is clearly not ready for the World Cup, our defense is very shaky and we waste too many passes. Paqueta needs to stop these “experiments” and start fielding the real deal, our upcoming friendlies against Portugal and France should give us the experience and hopefully get the team ready for the big event.

Mr Paqueta…you are gonna have to work your butt off.

Saudi Arabia got on the board first with a curling free kick by Mohammed Al-Shalhoub. Here’s the video.

But with three minutes from time Roiha put one in and salvaged a tie for the visiting Finns. Here’s the goal.

The result is the second straight tie for the Saudis under new coach Marcos Paqueta. Saudi Arabia next takes on Greece on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia continued with its poor recent form with a 1-1 draw at home against Sweden in Marcos Paqueta’s debut as coach. A goal by Mohammed Haidar in the 70th minute tied the game against a Swedish side that was made up largely of domestic-based players still trying to work their way into shape.

The Saudis controlled the second half of the game but can’t be pleased with this result. Paqueta took over for Gabriel Calderon last month after the country’s football federation sacked him for a poor string of performances.

Saudi Arabia plays again on Saturday against Finland and without a better result, Paqueta might already be feeling the heat. There is little patience for mediocrity within the Kingdom.