Europe; the breeding ground for talented players

I like to take your attention to some interested discussion at a program at Saudi Sports Channel. The discussion started with the failure of the national team to achieve victory and progress in the friendly games and especially in the recent game against Belgium, to who the team lost 1-2.

Among the participants were Foud Anwar Ex-national player and noteworthy journalist from Arriyadiyyah. In response to the partial failure, the journalist reiterated strongly that the players and coach don’t be blamed for weak performances. He feels that there is no one to blame, but point out at the uncompetitive nature of the Saudi Leagues. “The best teams in the world consist of players produced in Europe” he noted.

He does have a good point. I mean how can we explain the difference in physically stamina of a Saudi player and European based player. In the game against Belgium, Hossain Abdul Ghani at one point of the game failed to catch up to a Belgian player and fell to ground after failure to stop him. 2-1 ratio – two Saudi players have hard time to stop one opponent player.

The journalist said the player’s performance is in aligned with the performances of all players in the Saudi league. They don’t need high stamina, for there isn’t European type of players to see such a need. Only after playing European teams, do the players find themselves losing their breath to keep up with the energized players.

Foud Anwar, the star of Word Cup 94 for Saudi Arabia, argued against the journalist’s view. He thinks Saudi players are not competitively weak, as they did in 1994 qualify to the second round.

The team has great players. How do you think we beat teams like Morocco and Belgium in 1994?

In the last World Cup, South Korea was a shock to the world. Interestingly, a large number of the players were based at home. I wonder how they succeeded in creating a strong team solely of local based players.

I don’t think Saudi Arabia is at complete loss. They need to work on few thing – like keeping a continuous physical program as done at the Holland training. It just shows to say that Paqueta feels that the player are not leveled physically with European based players, but 100% physically ready for local games.