Saudi Arabia lost today 5-0 to Japan in the last game of the Asian Cup. This is the worst defeat for the Saudi team from another Asian team since 1981 when it lost 5-0 to New Zealand. In general, this is the lowest point ever reached by the Saudi football after the 2002 0-8 defeat from Germany.
Saudi team was beaten from within before the start of the game. After Peseiro was replaced, head of Saudi Federation was himself replaced. There were rumors that Saudi players left the camp. Another rumors (from the Japanese press) that some players seen drunk at late hour at night.
However, I am not that shocked by this defeat, I don't see it that bad .................
First of all, when the team internally has problems, fights and serious issues, you can expect the worse. It happened to a wonderful Cameroon team in 1994 WC. After a great start, they faced Russia in the last game. Russia surprisingly beat Cameroon 6-1. The reason was that the team had internal problems, rumors of players trying to stay-over at the US, and financial issues.
So, collapsing in such situations was not surprising. I expected Japan to win at least 2-0.
When Saudi lost the 0-8 in 2002 vs. Germany many people were aiming for a big change in Saudi Football Federation, but nothing happened. Now, the big change is happening and people are aiming for a restructure of the football federation.
One man, the team manager, Fahd Al-Musaibih was very well known by his mismanagement and was a big factor in killing players morals for many years. Rumors that he resigned today.
Still too early to judge, but if real restructure happened, we can see Saudi team 1994 again.
A lot of pressure from the media that cannot take it anymore, as Adil Essam Eddin famous comments after Jordan defeat (this link in Arabic)
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