29 February 2012
This day was nightmare for all ksa football fans.
As a national team was one step away from qualifying for the 2014 They faced Australia in the final match of the third qualifying round
Hf Saudi arabia 2-1 Australia
The people went crazy. On half. 45 min away from the world cup
Ahmed remembered this day clearly.
Can u imagine that at scholl. The teachers alowed the students to go home early as a lot of fathers came to pick up there kids to either watch the moment the team qualified to the world cup or to avoid the traffic that might happen after the celebrations started
No this actually happened. Like. Really happened. For real 200% true story
But then. What happened ?
The score stayed like this until the min 72
Min 73 Harry kewell scored
Min75 Alex brosque scored
Min 76 brett emerson scored
Complete devastation.
The famous mistake that kamel almousa made that day may or may have not became the first meme in ksa history
But what came after all that is that frank rijkaard the head coach of ks position at the time was shaking. And barlly escaped being fired
At the newspaper the peaople citizided rejkaard that dispite being a world class coach and fc barcelona previous coach he didn't try to keep up the lead by strengthening the defense and kept seending striker after striker
"How is it exactly that you take of a striker when you at at lead. Only to send another striker" said one newpapers and another said
The substitutions choices of rejkaard leave a big question mark
The fans were really upset by not being able to qualify to the world cup and started to blamd rejkaard on this defeat
In the press conference rejkaard said ' i admit my mistake and truth be told. We where close. I wanted to widen the score to be certain of vectory but we were cruched by the conter attaks. The australian played this well and i want the fans to give me another chance to prove me worth
When peaole asked about the wierd sub. He answerd. A 1 year is not enough time for me to fully grasp the ability of all my players as the time i was able to play with them was very limited. That maybe the reson behind the bad subs. But the real problem of the squad is the lack of flexibility. A have good squad with a bunch of good players. But the problem is a lot of my players have a very similar play styles and very similar capabilities there is a lack of variations in the squad and i simply couldn gind the man capable of controlong the momentum of the came and increase our precentage of position.
That is why i chose to attack rather than defend. Add to that that the team defence is not in the best shape. And sadly Australia was able to take advantage of that and score 3 goals in 4 min
And of course. All of this. Is my responsibility as the head coach of the team