Saudi Arabia vs Bahrain – 1st Leg

September 6th, 2009 | by: Fulanito |

Saudi Arabia National Team managed to hold their host Bahrain to a 0 – 0 draw in a game held last night in the small Kingdom of Bahrain pursuing their last chance to feature in 2010 World Cup for their 5th appearance consecutively.

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.