Riffa: Saad Al Shehri believes his Saudi Arabia players should focus on the positives after they missed out on claiming the country’s first AFC U-19 Championship since 1992 at the Bahrain National stadium on Sunday as the Gulf nation slipped to defeat against Japan in a penalty shootout.
Following a scoreless 120 minutes, Koki Ogawa scored the winning penalty for the Japanese after Abdullah Magrshi had sent his spot kick high over Ryosuke Kojima’s goal just seconds earlier as Japan won the title for the first time.
“The championship went well for us because we qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup next year and also, tonight, my team played their best game in the whole championship, but unfortunately it went to penalties and anything can happen,” said Al Shehri. “But I hope this competition will motivate the players because they played well.
“Throughout the championship we faced many strong teams and we couldn’t get our players to have a rest or to have a recovery. But what is important now is to motivate the players and make them proud of what they did.
“Japan had the strongest defence at this competition, but we created four chances against them, we just didn’t have the luck to score unfortunately. Now we want everyone to be behind them, to support them and to show that they are behind them.”
The Saudis hit the post as early as the second minute through Ayman Al Khulaif and Al Shehri’s team carved out several more opportunities against a team that did not concede a goal at any stage of the tournament, either in qualifying or in the finals.
Saudi Arabia will at least be able to console themselves with an appearance at the finals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Korea Republic next year, and Al Shehri promised his team would do their best to make an impact at the global event in May.
“What we did here is valuable because we have reached the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Korea and now we need the players to focus and for the clubs to let them play more games in the first team,” he said.
“I promise all the Saudi fans that they will see the best performances from the Saudi youth players at the World Cup next year.”
Photo: AFC
Source: the-afc.com