World Cup 06: Saudi Arabia

In this series of posts we shall look at each country’s profile that will see action during the games. We continue with Saudi Arabia (player profile). The full archive is found here.

Saudi Arabia’s team is fortunate to receive great amounts of financial backing since their performance in World Cup 94; though their recent slump in the next two World Cup competitions is disappointing. They are looking to redeem themselves with their triple threat player combination.

They have been Asian champions three times, in 1984, 1988 and 1996. The 1984 and 1988 performance has prompted the country’s authorities to introduce full professionalism on the sport that resulted in their FIFA World Cup finals appearance at USA 94. They lost to Sweden in the second round after beating Morocco and Belgium in the first round.

World Cup facts:

World Ranking (Feb 06): 35
Group: H
Coach: Marcos Paqueta
Road to finals: Winners of Group One
World Cup record: 1994, 1998, 2002
Tournament highlight: Second round in 1994

Saudi Arabia country facts is listed below:

Population: 22,757,092 note: includes 5,360,526 non-nationals (July 2001 est.)
Nationality: noun: Saudi(s) adjective: Saudi or Saudi Arabian
Religions: Muslim 100%
Languages: Arabic
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 62.8% male: 71.5% female: 50.2% (1995 est.)
Currency: Saudi riyal (SAR)
Currency code: SAR
Exchange rates: Saudi riyals per US dollar – 3.7450 (fixed rate since June 1986)
Fiscal year: calendar year

Facts found via CIA.

Watch out for Saudi Arabia. Their triple threat could prove fatal. You can see in this chart the list of teams and groups they belong to.