Under the slogan “third place”, our national Olympic team will advance today to the final of the Asian Cup U-23 against the home team of Uzbekistan to tame the tournament, which stubbornly resisted the green in the previous two draws.
The Saudi Greens reached the final of the AFC U-23 Cup in the inaugural 2023 draw against Iraq and finished in second place after losing (1-0) and then finished in the same position in the 2020 draw after defeating South Korea with the same result.
Our team is approaching today’s match with good numbers, including not scoring a single goal in their entire career in this tournament so far, which is an unprecedented achievement that no team has ever achieved before. Our players also scored 11 goals, in including 7 in the group stage and a double they won against Vietnam in the quarter-finals and repeated the same result against Australia in the semi-finals.
The strength of green lies in the uniformity of the group, the presence of a range of players with skill and mature planning mindset, and the fact that the substitution level is at the same basic level, allowing the coach to select elements according to the circumstances of each match and the participant.
National coach Saad Al Shehri is expected to start the match in the same formation as he played against Australia, except for the absence of Haitham Asiri, who came against Australia due to injury.
Nawaf Al-Aqidi will be in the goalkeeper, in the presence of Saud Abdul Hamid, Hassan Timbukti, Mutaib Al-Harbi, Hamed Al-Ghamdi, Ayman Yahya and Firas Al-Braykan, and Hussein Al-Essa will come to the main and he can push Turki Al -Ammar, who entered the group training quite recently, after stepping away from previous matches due to injury.
After the Australian match, Saad Al Shehri reaffirmed his players’ determination to catch up on previous finals, stating: “There are slight differences compared to the previous version as we were better prepared in the last version, but now we want to make up for the loss of the AFC U19 Championship final.” And up to 23 in previous years.” Our last team’s training in the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, was dominated by a state of optimism about winning the title, and yesterday, Saturday, the team finished training in high spirits, as the coach urged the players to focus and discipline on the field.
On the other hand, the Uzbekistan national team is preparing to search for its second title in the tournament after it was crowned in 2018.
Uzbekistan rose to this match after topping the first group with 7 points, beating Iraq 4-3 on penalties, reaching the quarter-finals of Fier after the match ended in a 2-2 draw, and overtaking Japan in the semi-finals with a clean double.
