JEDDAH, 4 September 2006 — Saudi Arabia scored a crucial 1-0 victory against Japan to go top of Group A in the Asian Cup qualifiers last night at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here.
The win gave the hosts 9 points from three matches with Japan in second with 6 points. Japan travel to Yemen on Wednesday, when the Kingdom host India in matches to begin the second round in the group. Saleh Bashir struck the only goal of the match in the 73rd minute when he was left unmarked and drilled home a nice pass from Muhammad Amin who was named best player of the game along with Hussein Abdul Ghani.
A large crowd came to support the Saudi squad and they were not disappointed as the three-time Asian champions played quality football to break the Japanese jinx. In their last seven meetings Kingdom won only once — in the 1990 Asian Games in China — while Japan won four matches.
Saudi Arabia paraded Muhammad Khoja at goalkeeping, Hussein Abdul Ghani, Reda Tukar, Naif Al-Ghadi and Ahmad Al-Dokhi at the defense line, Saud Kariri, Muhammad Amin, Omar Al-Ghamdi and Al-Khathran at midfield and Saleh Basheer and Essa Al-Muhayyani at striking line.
The Saudis took control of the first 20 minutes of the first half. The Japanese team’s performance started to pick up, took control of the midfield and created a number of chances.
Japan came very close to scoring their first goal in the 42nd minute when their striker cut through the Saudi defense line inside the penalty box but his attempt was inches wide on the right hand side of the goalkeeper.
In the 38th minute, star of the match Amin came nearly scored the first Saudi goal when he managed to take the ball inside the Japanese penalty box but his cross inside the penalty box found no receiver. The first half ended 0-0.
The Saudi coach made few changes at midfield to neutralize the Japanese. He introduced Badr Al-Hagbani and Abdu Utaif instead of Al-Khathran and Omar Al-Ghamdi. His changes paid off in the 73rd minute when a nice shot by Amin was diverted to the unmarked Saleh Bashir in the far right side. He shot the ball in the back of the net scoring what proved to be the game winner. The Japanese team pushed forward in search of the equalizer. But the determined Saudis defended well to preserve the win. The Kingdom relied on fast counter attacks when the Japanese seized control of the midfield. All their efforts to score were met by strong Saudi defense line.
