JEDDAH: The Saudi national team will play an international football friendly match against the Oman at Al-Saada Stadium in Om Salalah, Oman on Wednesday.
The match forms part of preparations for the upcoming first leg match against Bahrain on Sept. 5. The Saudi-Bahrain match is the playoff between the third-placed teams in the Asian World Cup final qualifying matches. The winner of this tie meets Oceania’s New Zealand in another home-and-away match to determine the continent’s fifth qualifier for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro called up 29 Saudi players for the training camp in Oman.
The president of General Presidency of Youth Welfare, Prince Sultan bin Fahd and his deputy Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, contacted the Saudi team manager to get an overview of the training camp and to encourage the Saudi players to show the best of their performance to qualify for the World Cup for the fifth time. Peseiro has mapped out a strategy against the Omani with Hussein Abdul Ghani to start as the team captain and Naser AL-Shamrani and Yaser Al-Qahtani at the striking line.
