Olympic Green tomorrow, Monday, will meet with the Japanese team in the fourth group stage of the group stage of the Asian Under-23 Championship, and the UAE team will meet with the team of Tajikistan.
The Saudi Arabian Olympic team tops the Group D standings in the U-23 Asian Cup, currently hosted by Uzbekistan, after a massive 5-0 victory over Tajikistan in the first round.
Our team easily overcame the first match in the group and beat the Tajik grid five times: Hamad Al-Yami, Ayman Yahya, Haytam Asiri, Miteb Al-Harbi, Abdullah Radif.
The Japanese team beat their UAE counterpart 2-1 in the same round, so that the Saudis and the Japanese tied for first place in the group with Saudi Green’s advantage on goal difference.
For his part, the coach of our team, Saad Al-Shehri, expressed confidence in the ability of his team to continue to improve their level after a major victory over Tajikistan with a score of 5:0.
He added: “I congratulate my team on this result, the first match was important and it is definitely very important to score five goals and not concede a single one and the most important thing for me is how we handled the match as we managed to open the scoring despite the opposing team’s defense before adding four goals in the second half.
He continued: “We watched a lot of matches for the national team of Tajikistan and they did well in qualifying and in my opinion they are a good team, but we were ready for the match and the tournament.”
He said: “I think my team will improve from one match to the next and you will see a higher level in the next match against Japan and then against the Emirates.”
He explained: “When playing against a team that is focused on closing down the defense, the secret to winning is to increase the number of players, and in that case the role of full-backs is very important to make a difference.”