viagramof – Italian Roberto Mancini, coach of the Saudi national team, revealed the difficulty of the confrontation
viagramof – Italian Roberto Mancini, coach of the Saudi national team, revealed the difficulty of facing his Bahraini counterpart tomorrow in the fourth round of the third group of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
Mancini: Facing Bahrain is difficult because they are a physically strong team
Roberto Mancini said in the press conference: “Confronting Bahrain is difficult because it is a strong team physically, good at defensive formation and strong in counterattacks. It will be a difficult match and we hope we will be able to achieve a positive result today.”
Roberto Mancini added: “Psychological support for the players is very important, and I thank the Minister of Sports and the President of the Federation for their closeness to the players and their support.”
The Italian coach continued: “All teams in the world change their ways of playing during the match, and this is usual. I am a coach and it is my duty to find solutions. My job is to find solutions and intervene to make a difference.”
The Saudi national team coach continued: “I follow all the players, whether in the Roshan or Yellow League, and I followed two matches by Salman Al-Faraj, and the national team’s doors are always open to everyone.”
Roberto Mancini concluded: “I am interested in developing the Saudi national team, and the statistics of the Japan match highlight the work I am doing, and the Bahrain national team is good from a physical standpoint, but we will work to achieve victory tomorrow.”
He continued: “I agree with Yasser Al-Meshal about the national team’s offensive suffering, but they must take advantage of opportunities, even if they are few, in order to achieve victory. We worked to solve that problem, and tomorrow we want to get the desired results.”
Roberto Mancini noted: “I had a number of players in the right-back position, and after Saud Abdul Hamid was suspended, I summoned Ali Majrashi because I did not want to include a player who would not play, and we were looking forward to Saud playing the two matches.”
Roberto Mancini concluded his speech: A message to the fans is to continue the support because it is important to us and we want it to continue. My message to the players is to focus and play as we played against Japan and take advantage of the opportunities that are available to us and not concede any opportunities.
The Saudi national team lost to its Japanese counterpart 2-0 in the third round of the third group of the decisive round qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.
The Saudi team ranks third in Group C with 4 points on goal difference from the Bahraini team.
