Why Can't Saudi Arabia score?
Al-Hilal show Saudi Arabia what they are missing in the United States
“Don’t let Salem Al-Dawsari take it!” That was the reaction all across Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in Asia when the star, the deserved Saudi Pro League player of the season, picked up the ball against Real Madrid in Miami on Wednesday.
Al-Hilal had been given a penalty but the 33-year-old, who scored the winning goal against Argentina, had missed the last three for the national team in World Cup qualification. Indeed, had he not, then the Green Falcons would probably now be safely in the hat for the 2026 tournament and not. Fortunately, Ruben Neves took the ball, the kick and the Blues took the lead.
The reports were focused very much on Real Madrid and the first game under new coach Xabi Alonso but Al-Hilal’s new boss Simone Inzaghi should be satisfied with his debut after the two played out a 1-1 draw in Miami. With the other three Asian teams losing their openers in the FIFA Club World Cup, it was a solid result and an encouraging performance against the mighty Europeans.
Like many Saudi Pro League clubs, Al-Hilal didn’t select a local striker to start the game and this is an issue for the national team which, incidentally, is also in the United States.
The Gold Cup
Thursday sees Saudi Arabia in action against the US in Austin, Texas, in the second game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The first saw a slightly fortunate 1-0 win over Haiti.
These have been a frantic few weeks for football in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Pro League season ended just last month with Al-Ittihad winning the title and then, on the penultimate day of May, the same team won the King’s Cup to complete the double.
June, though, has provided no respite. In the first ten days of the month, the national team failed to qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup, winning 2-0 in Bahrain and then losing 2-1 at home to Australia. There was no time to take stock for coach Herve Renard as he took most of his squad to the United States. Al-Hilal are the most successful team in the country’s history, with 19 titles, and Asia too, with four. The Blues usually provide quite a healthy proportion of players for the national team, 12 of the 2022 World Cup squad, for example, which means that Saudi Arabia are currently under strength. They could do with Al-Dawsari.
Coach Renard has much on his plate as he returns for a second helping. The Frenchman, who delivered that win over Argentina in Qatar 2022, left suddenly a few months later to take over the French women’s team. There were some indifferent results before he left, meaning that while most fans seemed sad and surprised to see him go, they were not devastated. In came another Roberto Mancini, who left the Italian job to head southeast, but it did not go well from the start. There was a falling out with some senior players ahead of the 2023 Asian Cup, that started in January 2024. Then he left the pitch to head down the tunnel before the penalty shootout against South Korea, which sent the Saudis home in the second round, had even finished.
He apologised but the damage was done. Only almost perfect results in 2026 World Cup qualification could have saved the Italian, who never gave the impression that he wanted to be there, and that was not the case. After a poor start, with just one win in the first four games in the final round of qualification, he was out of a job.
Renard returned and while his first game was a battling 0-0 draw in Australia, he wasn’t really able to turn the team’s fortunes around. A lack of goals has been the obvious issue, with just seven scored in ten third round qualifiers. Not one was scored by a recognised striker.
On The Bench
It is easy to blame the influx of foreign players in to the SPL in the past couple of years but it obviously is an issue. While it always has been, the massive spending of late, that has brought into top-class talents, has taken it to a new level. It’s not just about the quality but the quantity –the overseas quota for each club has gone from seven in 2022 to eight then to the current ten.
"The only problem we have, three years ago all the Saudi players played every game," said Mancini, not for the first time, before he left. "Today, 50, 60 percent don't play in the game and this is the only problem that we have. Saudi Arabia’s national team players must participate as core players with their clubs. I have 20 players sitting on the bench in local matches.”
That was something of an exaggeration. It tends to be that the first eleven, though this is obviously a fluid concept, plays a reasonable amount of minutes, but there is no doubt that more could do with more playing time, especially the chance to get a sustained run of games under their belts.
Renard said recently that he knew this would be a problem before he came back to Riyadh, and he has tried to select more players with more minutes. “I renewed the elements of the Saudi national team due to some players not playing with their clubs, and this was the toughest decision I made,” he said. “I knew six months ago when I returned that this was the challenge, and I accepted it; we do not make excuses, and we will not accept any excuse.'”
It’s the old trick of reminding people of an excuse before saying that there are no excuses. Though it must be a little frustrating. Take the example of Firas Al-Buraikan.
The season before last, the striker was the fifth top scorer in the league with 17, no other Saudi Arabian was anywhere near. At Al-Ahli, he was looking good but then the club went and signed Ivan Toney. The England striker was never not going to play and Al-Buraikan got shifted to the wings or the bench and his return was three goals. Abdullah Al-Hamdan was the next big thing five years ago and in Feb.2021 opted to sign for Hilal. Now 25, he started just two league games last season.
This is compounded by the fact that Saudi players rarely head overseas. This is very slowly starting to change with Saud Abdulhamid at AS Roma and the on-loan duo of Faisal Al-Ghamdi and Marwan Al-Sahafi at Beerschot in Belgium but these are slim pickings.
The reasons why could be the subject of another article, but for many, things are just too comfortable at home while, historically, clubs have been reluctant to lose their best local players.
So while Al-Hilal can duke it out with Real Madrid, the most successful European club ever, on the world stage, the national team needs to find a way to get the strikers scoring, ideally, starting against the USA.
I felt bad for Saudi Arabia last night against the US, knowing that half of their regular starters were playing for Al-Hilal at the CWC.
There was similar discussions in China and the consensus conclusion seems to be that, while proliferation of foreign strikers limited local ones' playing time, the ones did manage to find playing time with top foreign talent benefited from playing with better teammates.
While on the other side of the pitch, defensive players also gained from being tormented by better opponents, I noted that it tilted towards younger players accumulating experience rather than for old players to adapt to heightened pressure.