JEDDAH, 27 March 2005 — Saudi Football Federation President Prince Sultan ibn Fahd rewarded the Saudi players SR20,000 each for their fine performance against South Korea in the World Cup Group A Asian qualifiers on Friday, but also exhorted the players not to slip into complacency as they faced tougher tasks ahead in their quest for a direct World Cup berth from the region.
The Saudi Arabian team beat South Korea 2-0 in Dammam with a sterling all-round display of comprehensive soccer, and the monetary reward was a gesture from the SFF president for their hard work. Now in the space of four days they travel to Kuwait for a needle match that could well decide which of the Gulf sides has the best chance of making the grade.
The two teams, to meet on Wednesday, have always put in extra effort that has brought about some thrilling fares over the years. The matches between the two teams generate interest and hope that is always a notch higher than when they play any other teams from the region. And the next tie too promises to be a battle-royal with both needing to win to call the shots as the group qualifiers goes down the stretch after this match. The Saudi team will leave for Kuwait on Tuesday, as they continue their preparation in their training camp in Dammam. The Kingdom will however not have the services of Saud Kariri, who scored the first goal against South Korea, after he picked up his second yellow card in the match.
Saudi fans, meanwhile, expressed their jubilation on the victory against the Koreans. Many were surprised at the team’s excellent performance against the team that finished fourth in World Cup 2002. Mazin Al-Homoud said that the big win should prove a massive dose of encouragement against the key Kuwait match. He hoped that the players would continue to improve on this performance while asserting that the road to qualification still held some pitfalls as there are many more matches to come.
He said, “When I looked at the points position of the group after the win, Saudi Arabia though on top with 4 points, has just a one-point edge over Korea and Kuwait, who both have three points. That shows the difference between the three teams is very minor and all three teams are still in contention.”
“Though the performance of the Saudi players (against Korea) was good, they can still play better. They also made mistakes in this match and they need to work on those areas. We have three matches before we play against Korea in Korea, two with Kuwait away and home and one home against Uzbekistan, and we need to log nine points from the four ties. If we managed to collect these points from the first three matches, then we would not have to worry about Korea in the last match,” he added.
He said: “This win is now in the past and we have a key obstacle to clear in Kuwait. If we manage to win there, then the following assignments should be easy.”
Meanwhile, the King Fahd Cup Soccer Tournament will resume today with an important match between Al-Ahli and Al-Nasr at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal stadium here. Nasr enters the match in fourth place with 31 points from 17 matches while Ahli is fifth with 26 points from 16 matches.
Ahli’s hopes to come away with three points because a win against Nasr will boost Ahli’s chances of entering the top four and that would enable them to compete in the King Fahd trophy. Both Ahli and Nasr will not have their internationals who are on national duty.
Next Saturday, Ahli will play against Ohod of Madinah here in Jeddah, and another win could see them sitting pretty with 32 points. But a draw or a win for Nasr will put paid to Ahli’s hopes.
