Saudi Arabia's World Cup hopes hinge on a near-impossible task against Australia
A Saudi squad that has scored six goals through nine qualifying games needs to beat Australia by a five-goal margin to earn a direct spot at the 2026 World Cup.
Head coach Herve Renard knows it's an extremely unlikely outcome for his Saudi team, but he's urging his players to go all in Tuesday in the last game of the third round of Asian qualifying for next year's global tournament.
'The door is closed but we have to try to qualify even if it is through the window,' Renard said after his team's 2-0 win over Bahrain last week kept Saudi. 'Everything must go very well for us if we are to qualify; we have to score goals.'
Anything less than a five-goal deficit means Australia — in second spot in Group C — qualifies for a seventh World Cup. The last time the Socceroos lost by such a margin was in successive 6-0 defeats against Brazil and France in 2013. The Australians have scored 14 goals and conceded six through nine qualifiers.
After successive World Cup qualifications through the playoffs, Australia is close to securing a direct route but coach Tony Popovic is taking nothing for granted.
'We need to do a job in Saudi,' Popovic said. 'We're in a great position, but we need to finish it off.'
Popovic has only been in the job since September, stepping in after Graham Arnold resigned after collecting just one point in the group's first two qualification games.
'It's been a really intense period since I've come in but everyone's embraced what we're aiming to do,' he said. 'And we're very close now to achieving our goal.'
Asia has been allocated eight places at the 48-team World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The top two teams in each of the three groups in this round advance directly. The third- and fourth-place teams in each group go into another round vying for two more places.
Japan was the first to qualify and will top Group C regardless of the outcome between Australia and third-place Saudi Arabia. Iran and Uzbekistan have qualified from Group A, and South Korea and Jordan have qualified from Group B.
If Saudi Arabia fails to win by five, it will join United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia and Iraq in the next stage of qualifying in October. Oman, meanwhile, is fourth in Group B, a point ahead of the Palestinian team in fifth place, with the two teams meeting in Amman on Tuesday.
'We still have everything to play for and we know what we have to do and that is to take all three points and continue our journey,' Palestinian coach Ihab Abujazar said.
For China, Kuwait, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain, the run to 2026 is already over.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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