Keeping up with the trend: “1-1″

Saudi Arabia has finished three of their last 4 friendly games with a 1-1 draw. Due to possible bad luck, they failed to come out of the games as winners. Now it seems that it wasn’t bad luck but rather the Saudi team was just trying keep up with the trend [1-1] in the game results under the coaching of Paqueta.

Just today, Saudi Arabia drew 1-1 in an international friendly game against Syria in Jeddah in preparation for the Asian Cup qaulifying games. Saudi Arabia is playing Yemen on February 22nd as part of the qaulifying games, while Syria will face South Korea on the same day for the same competition.

Saudi Arabia’s striker Yasser Al-Qahtani scored the opening goal for Saudis by getting a nice ball from midfielder Nawaf al Temyat and then scoring after breaking through the Syrian defence. With only five minutes of lead, the Saudi Arabia defender Hamad Al Montashiri scored on his own goal by mistake while trying to kick away a pass from the Syrian player.

Saudi Arabia played with: Muhammad Al-Dayea (Goalkeeper), (four Defenders) Ahmed Dhoki, Redha Tuker, Hamad Al-Montashiri, Abdul Aziz Al-Khasran, ( Four Midfielder) Muhammad Al-Shalhoub, Nawaf al Temyat, Ahmed Atif, Khalid Aziz, ( Strikers) Eisa Al Mehyani and Yasser Al-Qahtani.

Saudi Arabia controlled majority of the game, but failed to convert opportunities into a goal. In the second half, Paqueta,substituted three players in one go but the subsituted players could not create any goals. Yasser Al Qahtani was also replaced after recieiving an injury.

With the game only being a friendly game, the real performance cannot still be determined. With more games for the Saudis in the coming weeks, the blured vision of the Saudi will become clearer.