Saudi Arabia celebrate World Cup qualification in style with 1-0 win over Australia

JEDDAH: With Saudi Arabia’s place at the World Cup finals in Qatar already secured, the fans came to celebrate on Tuesday and the players responded by finishing their qualification campaign on a high in Jeddah.

They defeated Australia 1-0 to take top spot in Group B, with Salem Al-Dawsari’s decisive second-half penalty livening up a match that had been robbed of its expected intensity, given that there was little riding on the game.

Nonetheless, it was a deserved win for the hosts, who finished the group with 23 points from 10 games, one point ahead of Japan. It marked the end of a long qualification journey that began in 2019 but the Green Falcons have improved along the way and few could argue that they do not deserve to progress as group winners to a sixth World Cup finals.

With the home team already through and Australia guaranteed third place, and the prospect of a play-off against the UAE in June, the atmosphere at King Abdullah Sports City was more celebratory than competitively hostile.

Despite the pre-match fighting talk from coach Herve Renard, Saudi Arabia played the first half with exactly the urgency you might expect from a team that had already qualified. Still, they enjoyed most of the possession, although the visitors had the greater number of chances.

Al-Dawsari had the first attempt on goal, after eight minutes, cutting in from the left to send a looping shot over Mat Ryan’s goal. For much of the rest of the half, however, it was the Aussies who were knocking at the door.

Shortly after Al-Dawsari’s attempt, Awer Mabil met Martin Boyle’s low cross from the right but the shot rolled just wide of the right-hand goalpost, with keeper Mohammed Al-Owais beaten. This set the scene for a period of