The New saudi coach as of June 2011 is Frank Rijkaard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_national_football_team He has coached Barcelona and has also played with Netherlands. I think this is the guy that can turn around the Saudi Football team. The saudi players have much talent but all is such a waste cause they don't want to play in the European Team. The saudi govt pays them a huge amount of money and thats y they dont want to go and play with different clubs. I was disappointed to see that they didn't qualify for the world cup and in the Asian cup....Lets hope Frank Rijkaard can change the team.. Inshallah
I also agree that Frank Rijkaard is a great coach. Lucky for him, the only major tournament in his three years in charge is World Cup Qualifying so he should have more time than his predecessors. We've actually talked about this many times. Saudi players receive less money in Saudi Arabia then they do in Europe. In fact, if a Saudi player makes it big in Europe, the amount of money he receives for marketing purposes from Saudi companies would be huge!
i think that the new coach is very good choice, yet, he will not solve the problems or make the 1994 achievement come back. what we need is much more than a coach. it is the whole structure of football need to change to make great use of the treasures that we have in saudi players. this is a very long topic, but simply to have professionalism in all of its means, not just signing contracts talking about players and money, i think that the top stars of the saudi players are so much over-estimated in their price and contracts. and this is the number one barrier for them to go to Europe. A talent like Yassir Al-Qahtani (when he was good) should be able to play anywhere in medium club in europe. his high ticket price makes his club interested to sell him to M.City only, which is too difficult. If he did like many moroccon or algerian players to go to Scotlando, Portugal, Belgium or smaller teams of the big leagues, he can shine very very quickly, then go to the very big club (if he proves he deserve it). examples are so plenty.
Erm, I don't don't, examples don't seem plenty to me. If I was a pro in Saudi would I rather play ACL football or football in Scotland? I'd choose ACL. Enough said. If I could play for Arsenal, Man U etc, then hell i'd go without being paid.
When will be the new coach taking over the team? It seems the NT will be playing under the temporary Brazilian coach against HongKong