The reporter reported coldly Saudi Arabia is the opponent of the national football team in March, and their current situation is not very good, and in the semi-finals of the Gulf Cup not long ago, Saudi Arabia was eliminated by Oman, which put French coach Hainach under huge public pressure. Although the Saudi Football Federation did not consider changing the coach again, it asked Hainach to submit a summary report of the round of 18 and the Gulf Cup in November last year, and to improve and improve the deficiencies that appeared.

In order to defeat the national football team in the round of 18 in March, the Saudi Football Association decided to change the home "transfer" that it had been using before. In addition, Hainach has been constantly visiting the Saudi league to inspect some of the players, and it is reported that he may improve the atmosphere in the dressing room by changing the captain.

Change the home stadium and hope to have a better home atmosphere

After the defeat in the Gulf Cup, the Saudi Football Association took into account various factors and decided to change the home stadium for the round of 18 after that.

In the round of 12 of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the Saudi Arabian team will set its home stadium in Jeddah, defeating Japan, China, Oman and Australia to score 12 points, laying a solid foundation for early qualification.

However, since 2023, the situation has changed abruptly, and the Saudi team has played 5 matches in Jeddah without a win. Last year, the round of 18 did not taste a win in three home games, and was forced to draw by Indonesia and Bahrain, and then lost to Japan, and the home advantage was not fully utilized. In March 2023, they lost all their warm-up matches against Venezuela and Bolivia.

According to the Saudi newspaper "Sports", the Saudi Football Association has circled three candidate stadiums: the King Saud University Stadium, the home of Riyadh Victory, the Prince Bin Fahd Stadium, the home of Dammam Cooperation, and the EGO Stadium. Saudi Arabia's national team director Daoud, media director Alwan, and national team assistant coach Sofia are in charge of the home change project, and Saudi Arabia coach Al-Hainach visited three stadiums last week to assess the quality of the stadium's hardware facilities and turf.

Riyadh's King Saud University Stadium has a capacity of 25,000 people, Dammam's Prince Bin Fahd Stadium has a capacity of 22,000, and the EGO Stadium has a capacity of only 15,000, and the King Saud University Stadium and EGO Stadium have just completed their modernization in 2023 and are more suitable as the new home stadium of the Saudi team. In terms of familiarity, Riyadh has the advantage, as this is where the Saudi Arabian team was home during the round of 36. Dammam's most recent home game was against Mali in September 2019 and the Saudi Arabians beat the national team 2-1 at the Prince Bin Fahd Stadium in Dammam in February 2013 in the Asian Cup qualifiers. The 22,000-seat stadium at the time had an influx of 20,000 people, creating a better home atmosphere than the Jeddah Stadium, which had only half the attendance for the recent round of 18.

King Saud University Stadium

Changing the captain, the coach and the Football Association disagreed

After the Gulf Cup, Saudi Arabia's main goalkeeper Al-Owais, defender Breich and captain winger Salim al-Dosari all intend to withdraw from the national team, which has sparked heated discussions. Salim Al-Dosari and Breich have rejected contract extensions for club Riyadh Crescent and will have to think about the future of their careers ahead of the round of 18 in March. Despite Al-Dosari's excellent performances this season, with eight goals and eight assists in 24 appearances, he has not performed as a club player for the national team. Saudi internationals like Al-Dosari are not a minority, and there is a huge difference between a player's performance at club level and that of the national team.

Recently, Hainach has been busy watching the Saudi league live and observing the performance of the players. In the last round of the league, Riyadh Crescent defeated Al Ahsa Conquest 9-0, Al-Dosari scored a hat-trick of assists, and in terms of individual ability, he is still the core of the national team. However, Al-Dosari did not approve of the Saudi team's locker room environment and the pressure of public opinion in the round of 18, especially after his 35-year-old teammate Blech strongly hinted that he would retire from the national team. Saudi Arabia coach Al-Hainach is considering whether to remove Salim al-Dosari as captain and hand him over to a veteran midfielder who has performed better for the national team in order to boost the morale of his squad. However, on this issue, Hainach has a disagreement with the Saudi Football Federation, which believes that changing the captain before the game will not help the atmosphere in the dressing room.

In addition to the turmoil caused by the three veterans wanting to retire from the national team, Sehat Gulf striker Salem questioned Saudi coach Hainah's selection criteria, which also caused controversy in Saudi Arabia. Salem currently has eight goals in the Saudi league, the most of any homegrown player in the league, just behind four foreign players and four fewer than Mitrovic at the top of the table. The second highest scorer for homegrown players is Riyadh Crescent defender Juval with just four goals. However, Salem, who performed well, was still not selected for the Gulf Cup squad, which did make the outside world a little difficult to understand Hainach's selection criteria. Although the player himself has said that he will continue to work hard to earn the coach's approval, as things stand, Heinach's reliance on the 2022 World Cup veteran will not change much.