Against Messi and Lewandowski, Saudi Arabia is a candidate to suffer defeats in the World Cup

The team that scored one of the most beautiful goals in World Cup history could have problems scoring in Qatar.

Offensive performance is one of Frenchman Herne Revard’s biggest concerns for Saudi Arabia. It is reasonable to consider that the team is a candidate to concede a lot of goals in the tournament that starts next month.

The Saudis are in Group C. They will face two of the top scorers in world football. Debut on November 22 against Lionel Messi’s Argentina. In the second round, the rival will be Robert Lewandowski’s Poland. At the end of the first phase, there will be Mexico.

Since the last round of the Asian qualifiers in March, Saudi Arabia has played four friendlies and not scored any goals.

“I think that against the United States we played a very good match, despite the 0-0,” Revard said after the tie against the Americans on the 27th.

The team also drew goalless with Ecuador and was defeated 1-0 by Colombia and Venezuela.

The hope of the country’s fans is that in Qatar the team will meet the image of midfielder Saeed Al Owairan. In the best Saudi campaign in the history of the World Cups, he scored the most beautiful goal of the 1994 World Cup, when he started with the ball dominated from the defense field and only stopped inside the Belgian goal, in the 1-0 victory that took the Arabs to the round of 16. of end.

It is the moment for which the team is most remembered. Since the defeat to Sweden, in the playoffs in the United States, he has been present in four World Cups. They won only one match, against Egypt, in 2018, in a confrontation in which the two countries were already eliminated. In the tournament in Russia, the participation was marked by the 6-0 suffered against Russia, the biggest score in the history of the opening matches of the competition.

Despite the recent bad record, Saudi Arabia did not encounter any major problems in the qualifiers. Finished in the first position in a group with opponents that are used to appearing in World Cups and will be in Qatar: Japan and Australia. In the campaign, he lost only once, to the Japanese as a visitor. In the ten rounds, he won seven times.

There is the problem of the squad’s lack of experience in facing elite players. The entire team plays in the local tournament, the Saudi Pro League. The base is made up of Al-Hilal (the main club in the country), Al-Nassr and Al-Shabab.

The French coach hopes that the creativity to link attacking moves will come from midfielders Salem Al-Dawsari, 31, and Fahad Al-Muwallad, 28. Muwallad has not played in recent friendlies due to an injury. The main offensive reference should be the forward Firas al-Buraikan. The tendency is that he is the only one in front, being supported by two wingers, in a system similar to the 4-3-3, although the concern of the two more open midfielders is also defensive.

Saudi Arabia, for better or worse, tends to have famous moments when it participates in World Cups. If in 1994 there was the goal of Al Owairan, four years later the local federation fired the Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira after the defeat to France, in the second round of the tournament. In 2002, they took Germany 8-0.