Saudi Daily News Thread [R]

Hilal will officially send a complaint to the Saudi Football FA since Musabeh, the President of the Saudi NT, didn't allow Deayea to join Hilal during its Ittihad game on Friday, since he had a light injury. Whats wrong with them? He came from Hilal injured, and when he got healed during the NT's trainings and when Hilal's game began, they wanted Deayea to play? Let him rest for gods sake, before his injury increases, just like in the last WC. Thank god Musabeh didn't let him play, even though he used to play for Hilal.

 

Jubleen Incident

Last Thursday, during the Raed x Jubleen game, Raed scored in the 42nd minute. This upsetted the assitant coach, Daran AlDaran, who went to the first ref, the ref gave him a red card, and the sub goalie of Jubleen threw a bottle of water towards the ref, and he replied with a red card. By now, all the players of Jubleen went towards the ref, one pulled his shirt, and red card he went. Then all the players surrounded him, some fans and adminstrators, and fighting pulling happened. The punishment appeared today, 9 players banned from soccer for life, the current Jubleen adminstration are banned from managing a team for 4 years, the coach Daran was banned for life to coach, and a Tunisian doctor was banned to come to Saudi Arabia.

 

Saudi veteran back in contention
22 March 2006
by FIFAworldcup.com



One of the most noteworthy aspects of Marcos Paqueta's short reign to date as Saudi Arabia coach has been the reappearance between the posts of veteran goalkeeper Mohammed Al Deayea.
After replacing Gabriel Calderon in December, Paqueta took little time in restoring Al Deayea, the world's most-capped international footballer, to the team. Al Deayea played his first match under the Brazilian in the 1-1 draw with Finland in January and retained his place through to the 3-0 defeat by Portugal on 1 March, when he made his 179th appearance for his country.

Although he did not feature in the 2-2 draw with Iraq a fortnight later, Al Deayea's involvement under the new coach marks an unlikely comeback given the fact Mabrouk Zaid played in all six of Saudi Arabia's FIFA World Cup™ qualifying matches in 2005 – and performed impressively.


Until Paqueta's appointment, the 33-year-old had played only four matches for Saudi Arabia in over three years following the last FIFA World Cup in 2002. Those four outings all came in 2004, one in the 3-0 win over Indonesia in FIFA World Cup qualifying and the others in the Gulf Cup.





Al Deayea was left out in the cold all through last year but it seems Paqueta was keen to reintegrate him because of his vast international experience. The Brazilian is worried that his team, who will face Spain and Ukraine in the first round in Germany, lack exposure against European teams. "We have a good group of players but they lack greater involvement at international level," said the coach.
Experience is certainly not a worry with Al Deayea, who is a legendary figure in his country's football history. For 12 years he was a fixture in goal for Saudi Arabia, up to their disastrous campaign at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan.

He made his international debut way back in 1990 against Bangladesh and was part of the team that reached the second round at USA 94 on their FIFA World Cup debut. After winning the 1996 AFC Asian Cup, he completed his century of caps against Mexico in 1998. His 150th cap came in 2001 against Mongolia and he went into the 2002 finals with 166 appearances to his name.

In the Far East, however, he conceded 12 goals in three matches, eight of them in the Saudis' humbling at the hands of Germany. In the wake of that embarrassing defeat, Al Deayea - whose one clean sheet in ten FIFA World Cup appearances was against Belgium in 1994 - received the backing of Saudi team manager Faisal Abed Al Hadi, who described him as "one of the most talented goalkeepers in Asia".





Al Deayea has had mixed fortunes since returning to the Saudi side. He kept a clean sheet in the 4-0 Asian Cup qualifying victory over Yemen but has conceded eight goals in five friendly matches, including the three Portugal put past him.
Of course, he is not the only one responsible for keeping out the opposition and, in his absence, the last-minute Iraq goal that denied Saudi Arabia a win on 15 March suggests they will have plenty of defensive work to do in the run-up to Germany 2006, whether Al Deayea is in the team or not.


The NT will face some rivalry in the upcoming weeks, after Mabrouk Zayed comes back from his injury. Similar to Kahn x Lehman in Germany.

 

Yesterday was the first day in the trainings for the Poland friendly on Tuesday, Sami AlJaber wasn't there for doing a commercial with Pepsi in, yes again, Beirut. While Montashri and Ameen didn't train yesterday due to some bumps which has gone under treatment this morning. Other than that, all players trained, and Bakita concentrated on fitness training. Poland NT will arrive today at 7 pm, and Bakita will have a conference meeting tonight after todays training. Musabeh has said that the friendlies and training camps in April will be revealed after the Poland friendly.

 

Yes, felt lazy to type Paqueta, so Bakita now.

Points Of Bakitas Conference :

- He began talking about Candino's criticization towards the NTs program.

- He said he has began concentrating on the offense, after he has found enough starting defenders.

- He said Hussien AbdulGhani is a good player, and hopes he can come back to his real performance.

- Friendly games are a illusion, and we always looks for good performance and results. All NTs are not consistent, and Brazil who is expected to win the WC has many problems too. I promise everyone that the NT will be consistent by the beginning of May, espicially since the NT is going through a good program.

- He also said that the current players in the training camp will NOT go through a training camp in April.

- He didn't want to send the players list on May 10, and disapproved it, but everyone has to soonly accept it.

- Also a reply to some of the fans who want to nationalize Tavares, so he can play with the NT, "I dont hold this choice, but I would be happy if that happened".

- He also said that the stock market joke wasnt a joke, and that many players went through mentally problems.

 

Bakita had to remove 3 players from the NT, since Poland had only 18 players, so to reduce it from 23 to 20. The three players were (Mustafa Malaeka, Kamil Mousa, and Sulayman Amidou). Both teams have agreed on 6 substitute in the game, and Saudi Arabia will be playing with white shirts, and Poland with red shirts. Prince Nawaf will also be announcing next week the program of the NT from April till the WC, so I hope it will be a succesful one.

 

Another bad performance by our NT. At least now Bakita is playing with one line up, not messing it around and stuff, so lets hope the best, and lets all be patient, many teams have lost badly and played badly before the WC, but they amazed in the WC. Our players were losing and playing badly, but Prince Sultan didnt care and went and gave Montashri and Deayea some nice gifts. Mashallah.

 

The first one is a cooperation between Germany and Saudi Arabia olympics, and the media and fans support for both in the upcoming WC. The second one is for the Saudi U17 NT, which will get ready for the Tehran Cup, by facing the Hilal U17, and a chance of meeting Brazil U17.

 

Saudis schedule Belgium warm-up
30 March 2006
by Reuters



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Saudi Arabia will play Belgium in a FIFA World Cup warm-up in the Netherlands on May 11, the Belgian Football Association announced on Thursday.
"Belgium will play Saudi Arabia at the Stade du Fortuna Sittard close to Maastrict," a Belgian FA statement said. It is an away fixture for Belgium.

Saudi Arabia meet Tunisia, Ukraine and Spain in Group H at the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on June 9.

Belgium failed to make the finals in Germany, the first time the Red Devils have not qualified for the tournament since 1978.

So traveling by bus for half an hour is an away game? Of course, but traveling by plane 4-5 hours to a different continent, is an home game?

 

Togo finalise warm-up programme
3 April 2006
by Reuters

Togo will play friendlies against Saudi Arabia and Liechtenstein to warm up for the FIFA World Cup™ finals in Germany.
Coach Otto Pfister said Togo would play Saudi Arabia in Amsterdam on 14 May and Liechtenstein in Vaduz on a date still to be determined.

Togo, who are to hold a five-week training camp at Wangen in Germany, will also play matches against third division FC Augsburg on May 28 and against Bayern Munich's reserve side and a Wangen team on dates still to be arranged.

Pfister named Dutchman Pitt Hamberg his assistant coach for the tournament with former Togo national coach Kodjovi Mawuena also part of his technical team. Hamberg is on the staff of Grasshoppers Zurich in Switzerland.

Togo play their opening FIFA World Cup group match against Korea Republic in Frankfurt on 13 June. They also play Switzerland and France in Group G.

BTW, Prince Nawaf has already confirmed playing these teams, so now that the other side has also confirmed it, its pretty official. Playing Belgium is very good, they are a good physical team.

 

Prince Nawaf has confirmed the following :

Holland Training Camp
Belgium on May 11
Togo on May 14

Austria Training Camp
Czech on May 16

Then fly to Germany to play Turkey on May 31.
June 4 we will play a World Class according to him which will be announced later.

This is what I said in another topic. Belgium and Togo are 99% sure, the only thing left is money agreement, Czech 90%, and Turkey 70%. Anything else just forget it, maybe Mexico is the 'World Class' team, maybe.

 

Abdullah AlDabl, an important member of the Saudi FA, has been interviewed by Arriyidiah. Some important points :

- 2002 preparations were very bad.

- 1994 preparations was perfect, since the NT players were free since March or so, the 2006 preparations are very similar to 94, but in 94 was better because of the above, and because Saudi Arabia was not very known worldwide.

- Carlos Alberto Parriera, the bitch, had said to the players before the France game in 98, "You won't be able to play France, you should be happy that you are lucky enough to face France in the WC, thats why I won't give you any plans or strategy, because if I even did it won't help you." According to some players of that team, AlDabl didn't assure this.

- It doesn't matter the result of the friendly games, but most important is that the coaching team can fix the problems, to evade it in the official games.

- He was asked about how the Tunisia media were ignoring Saudi Arabia's power to compete in the group, by saying that they were able to beat us, but most important was the Spanish and Ukranian team. "It won't matter, we will talk in the green field and show them".

 

Maybe, but playing Argentina is very good. Hope its true.

 

Yes, why do you think they fired him after 2 games? The players got sick of his 'useless' threatens and told an Saudi official and finally got him sacked. In a dangerous attack for Saudi Arabia, it was one attacker against a defender and goalie, he somehow found himself in a good chance of getting a goal, but purposely fell and lost the ball. Why? So Carlos won't sub him out, Carlos did not want ANY kind of offense, he just wanted to end the game with the less number of goals. Before the Frances game, we even got robbed in the hotel! We had an unbelievable squad, but with those kinds of situations, no wonder we ended up with nothing.

 

You never know Hijazzey..

 

Ittihad x Ahli will be on April 12, while the winner x Hilal will be on April 17.

 

It was just a rumour, Prince Sultan himself denied this, and assured he will stay till WC.