Saudis eye early qualification

The ‘sons of the desert’, who are seeking a fourth consecutive appearance in the World Cup, were placed in Group B in the final round of Asian qualifiers on Friday along side Korea Republic, Iran, DPR Korea and UAE.

Al Johar, who took over from Brazilian Helio dos Anjos for the remaining two games of the third round, said: “The draw is balanced because all the teams in the group are of same level and this gives everyone a chance to qualify for South Africa.”

Al Johar, who had led the Saudis to the runners-up position in the AFC Asian Cup 2000 in Lebanon and also the FIFA World Cup 2002 Finals where they failed to clear the group stage, feels his players have the ability to seal an early qualification.

“I trust my players and we have an ambition to top the group and qualify early for the World Cup,” he said.

“We have played teams in our group before and the coaches of all the five teams know their opponents quite well. The final round will not be easy as all the teams have performed well in the previous round.”

“We have plenty of support to continue our march towards South Africa. We will try our best to make this dream come true,” added Al Johar under whose guidance Saudi Arabia scored confident wins over Singapore (2-0) and Uzbekistan (4-0) in the final two games of the third round.