5 things we learned from Saudi’s 1-0 win over Iceland in Abu Dhabi

07.11.2022 - 01:37 arabnews.com

ABU DHABI: Saudi Arabia defeated Iceland 1-0 on Sunday in the latest World Cup warm-up for Herve Renard’s men with Saud Abdulhamid scoring the only goal of the game after 25 minutes.

Here are five things we learned from the action in Abu Dhabi. The captain’s fitness is worrying Salman Al-Faraj is not only the captain and leader of the team but a calming and composed presence in midfield.

He makes the team tick. Coach Renard last week compared him to Thiago Motta, the former Barcelona, Inter and Paris Saint-Germain midfielder who started his career playing for Brazil and then became an Italian international.

It was quite the compliment but the problem is that Al-Faraj has been struggling for fitness all season. He has only played 179 minutes of league football this season for Al-Hilal and it has been a real stop start campaign.

FIFA Premier League win Things 1 Novak Djokovic Newcastle United Thiago Motta Southampton Qatar Italy Brazil Saudi Arabia Newcastle Iceland South Korea

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia lost 2-0 to Poland at Education City in Qatar on Saturday and remain on three points after two games in World Cup Group C. Here are five things we learned from the match: Saudi Arabia deserved something It was an entertaining encounter that should have contained more goals, and many of them could have gone to Saudi Arabia. There may have been concerns that the win over Argentina was so big that it would be hard for coach Herve Renard to get his players down from cloud nine and focus on the task at hand, but that was not the issue.

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