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Population: 33.0 million
Capital: Riyadh
Team Colors: White and Green
How Qualified: 2nd in AFC Third Round Group B
Nickname: Green Falcons
4th World Cup
Head Coach: Juan Antonio Pizzi (ARG)
Key Players: Mohammed Al-Sahlawi (Al-Nassr), Osama Hawsawi (Al-Hilal), Yahya Al-Shehri (Leganes)
Best Performance: Round of 16 (1994)
Can they gel? Saudi Arabia is notorious for going through coaches the way Spinal Tap go through drummers. Juan Antonio Pizzi is the third coach in less than a year for the Green Falcons.
Saudi’s heyday was in the 1990s. They qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 1994, got two wins, and advanced to the Round of 16. There have been no wins either 1998 or 2006 and this is their first World Cup since then. They have won the Asian Cup three times, but none since 1996.
Despite that, it is a tight-knit squad with most of the representatives in the current preliminary squad either from Al-Hilal or Al-Nassr. All but nine players are from those two clubs to be precise. Expect this team, along with Russia, to be fielded with mostly domestic players when the final squad is announced. A ploy to loan out three players to Spanish clubs did not translate in much playing time for any of them.
It will be inexperience at this stage that could be their undoing. They, like Russia, are not the strongest team fortunate to not be in the toughest group. Unlike Russia, they are not the hosts, so it might be even tougher.
Saudi Arabia are in their first World Cup since 2006, they have had 12different managers since that time and three since September of 2017. Is there enough time for the coach and squad to gel? If not, it will be a short time in Russia.
Schedule:
June 14: vs. Russia in Moscow (Luzhniki) (10am CT on FOX/Telemundo)
June 20: vs. Uruguay in Rostov-on-Don (10am CT on FOX/Telemundo)
June 25: vs. Egypt in Volgograd (9am CT on FS1/NBC Universo)
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