Any 1 here can explain what with Kings Cup this season. how come all the league teams are participating along with first and second division
Yes, i'd like some clarification. I don't understand this tournament which results websites call Champions Cup which makes sense to me as the end of season cup for top 8
Well, they changed the rules this year. Now the teams that participate are: the 14 premier league teams + the 16 first division teams + 2 representatives from the lower leagues (I beleive they had elimination rounds of some sorts). It seems redundant right now. what's the difference between the King's and Crown Prince's cups?! People are suggesting to expand the Crown Prince's cup to become a full blown relegation tournament for all teams and make the King's cup a super cup between the league and cup winners at the beginning/end of season. Either that or return to the old format which made the struggle in the midtable interesting. It will also make things more interesting when the Premier league expands to 16 teams expected next season or the season after that.
I like it the way it was before. Top 8 for Kings Cup. Like this system we will witnessing to many matches in the season and plus derbies too which will turn boring in coming seasons. Make the CPC more larger from teams first, second and third division and the Kings Cup remain the same.
And about the expansion of the league. I dont think it should happen in 3 seasons time. The amount of pending cases/complaints against the clubs, the cash crunch, incompetitiveness makes the league boring. From past three seasons we are saying the bottom team or the new entrant performing terribly bad like wise of Wehda, Ansar and this season Nahdah. The expansion will only make the league one sided.
True, but expansion is needed to maintain maximum entries in the ACL. For this season, you have to admit that it is shame that teams like Faisaly, Raed, Or Oruba get relagated. They did well and got good results against top teams. the points accumulated this season would have normally made them safe near the middle of the pack. As for the financial problems of many clubs, that is due to mismanagement. Even if the league had only 10 teams, you would have the same problem. And with regards to incompetitiveness, that's true . Very few teams compete for the title, but a lot of these small teams play for pride. City/town/regional pride. Clubs like Taawon and Raed always get ranked 5th and 6th in fan attendance. Najran and Orubah also get good following, and I don't need to remind anyone about Fateh last season. Having them play in the premier leauge increases their revenue (e.g. for TV) and get their players better exposure.
Whats with ACL and expansion of league. We already have 4 teams play in ACL how much more can you enter. If expansion will be done the teams you mentioned like Faysaly , Raed, Tawoon and Najran will be happy to survive the league by defeating each other and the new comers and not giving enough competition to the big teams. The only possibility if the league is not expanded is these mid table team will play some serious games .
I don't think AFC require the league to expand anymore...AFC are happy with 14 teams and 26 games. I don't think AFC would require a bigger league for ACL as you only need to look to Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Australia, they can't expand anymore than they have already!!
Good news for smaller countries. I remember Saudi media reported 2 years ago saying that we had to expand the league to 16 in order to maintain participating with 4 clubs, otherwise we will lose 1. Maybe Sheikh Salman scraped that when he became president. Anyway, last night I heard some guy from the Saudi FA in a talk show say that the league will not be expanded next year.
Is it better to increase the number of participating teams in the league? Yes in my opinion, but is the way the league is set up (schedule, TV revenues, marketing) makes it the right decision? Probably no. 16-18 teams is what they should aim for, but as I said there are several priorities need to be dealt with first.
Team for Indonesia - Goalkeepers: Abdullah Al Enazi, Abdullah Al Maiouf and Fahad Al Thanian. Defenders: Mohammad Eid, Omar Hawsawi, Khalid Al Ghamdi, Mansour Al Harbi, Abdullah Al Zouri, Yasser Al Shahrani, Ahmad Asiri, Hassan Mouath and Majed Al Marshadi. Midfielders: Ibrahim Ghaleb, Yahya Al Shehri, Muataz Hawsawi, Waleed Bakshwin, Tayseer Al Jasem, Salem Al Dossari, Mohammad Bosban, Hamdan Al Hamdan and Abdulaziz Al Jebrin. Strikers: Mohammad Al Sahlawi, Nasser Al Shamrani, Mukhtar Falata and Fahad Al Muwallad. Probably the last match for Lopez Caro..
I read a while ago in newspaper and the FA has already dispatched a team to find a replacement. Do you really like him??
I don't know him, but I don't think short term coaches are the solution for Saudi Arabia. Change the FA, the whole system but sacking the coach after 1 year and appointing a new foreign coach will not improve the NT.
Little review out here for the NT performance in ACQ... Not a great one I must say ...We just limped of with 1-0, 2-1 score lines all the matches...But it was a surprise that we did not struggle to qualify with Iraq China in group .. From the back line we are strong with variety of options so no much worries. Midfiield is preety decent too but we need sum one who can replace Jasem when he retires and also our midfield is too young which is a positive note. Saud kariri wont be long so Ibrahim Ghaleb also not that great we need a DM badly.. The attackers are awesome, Sehri , abdul aziz dosary , salem dawsari , Fahd Muwallad , Nawaf Abed, Basas, Bakhsweing and others whom i cant recall...The strking is pretty awefull. I least remember when we scored more than 3 goals...I give this credit to all the clubs .. Shamrani is 30 now I beleive and he wont play long more. Sahlawi does not get enough minutes to play . Salem is trashed thanks to Hilal. Falatah is overshadowed between the biggies. Other strikers Khamees, Hazazi , Muhanad Asiri, untill they move to either Hilal or Nasser wont be considered. Lastly the coach . I havent understand his style of play yet. But one thing he should not be the coach any more. With lots of attacking mid field we need a attack minded coach rather than a coservative minded one.
Not to take anything away from Saudi Arabia, which did a good job by topping the group, but it also has to do something with Iraq and China being the weakest in years. When you faced Iraq, we weren't full strength. Especially our defence was a mess. A lot of individual mistakes were made by players who didnt deserve to wear the national jersey. Our most important European based players Ahmed Yasin and Yaser Kasim were missing. They were all present against China and look what happened. I'm glad we qualified but we should have done it earlier. We made it hard for ourselves. I hope you'll make it far next year KSA!
@al ittihady I wasn't able to watch the game against Indonesia but there some points I concluded based on the previous NT matches and the league's. DM: Ghaleb is having a really good season with Nassr and while he may not be ready yet to be a 1st-choice DM for the NT right now, I think I trust him to take the responsibility once Kariri starts to lose his spot in the team, which I don't think is sooner than at least 2 more years if Saud stays as fit as he is now. AM/Wingers: Right now we probably have the best product in this area in years, the talented players are there but many of them aren't being used properly. Yahia Shehri is one who I really like to see but he needs to get more playing time with his club, he is still my #1 for the play maker role if the team plays in that system. Salem Dawsari has a bit of athleticism and hunger in his game which we don't see very often in players in his position, but his decision making is horrible sometimes, I think he will benefit from the "inverted wingers" idea. I still don't know why Sami Aljaber never tried to let him play in the left side (and do likewise to Nawaf Alabed, A.Dawsari and let them play in the right side).He has some nice dribbling skills and will have more chances to shoot and improve his scoring ability if he cut inside instead of "run to the side and make a random cross or cut inside and have a stinky shot with the left foot", which he does very often. Strikers: It depends on what system the NT manager prefers, 2 strikers or 1, Nasser Alshamrani should be 1st option in my opinion in both systems, Mukhtar Fallatah is a very cool striker and I won't be pissed if he manages to be the #9 in the team. I think the striker position overall isn't the weakest in the team, Nasser, Mukhtar, and Sahlawi are more than adequate for now. As for the manager, I agree with you about the defensive set up, I hate it when the NT plays with 3 DM, it's so frustrating. I don't remember any manager in the past decade (beside Calderon?) who played attacking football, I think it suits us better but I don't know if sacking Lopez is a wise decision given we don't have many options in replacing him unless they look for one of the Saudi teams managers, which I don't think they will do anyway.
Very good news, but don't you think it's better -from an organizational perspective- that the 1st match to be played at the stadium should be a friendly one, not a cup final?
Yeah , it should have been a friendly but looking at the WC around the corner and major leagues nearing to end I dont think any one will be interested to come and play club or country. But the most fearsome part is , its going to be free to the public and I dont want any catastrophe to happen..