Road to 2034: What does Saudi Arabia have to do to produce a successful national team?

RIYADH: In hindsight, Saudi Arabia’s exit from the World Cup after a stalemate with Cape Verde does not look as bad as it did at the time.

The Blue Sharks were one of two teams to put two goals past runners-up Argentina, and the only team in the tournament to avoid both losing and conceding a goal to the eventual champions, Spain. But if that is what the Green Falcons were to take from the World Cup, it risks shifting focus away from the deeper underlying issues hindering Saudi football on the Road to 2034.

In the 90 minutes against Cape Verde, all of Saudi Arabia’s problems were laid bare.

Some pointed to the late appointment of Georgios Donis as head coach, with little time to install a clear identity before the tournament. Others pointed to the lack of playing time for domestic players. Neither fully explains the sheer lack of desire to win a game that needed to be won.

After all, Herve Renard walked into the 2022 World Cup with a full qualification cycle behind him and still saw Saudi Arabia eliminated in the group stage — suggesting the issue runs deeper than the timing of a coaching appointment.

For a set of players brave enough to take on Messi and co, going on the back foot against a team making its debut — regardless of how good they turned out to be — represented poor progress over four years.

Of course, the team had seen changes since, with 10 players under the age of 27 making their World Cup squad debut in 2026 — most prominently the youngest of them all: Musab Al-Juwayr.

Yet Al-Juwayr played an average of 82 minutes per game in the Saudi Pro League with Al-Qadsiah this season — more than every midfielder Saudi Arabia called up to the 2022 World Cup squad, including Salman Al-Faraj.

This challenges