Serbian Vuk Razovic, coach of the Al-Taawoun team, confirmed that his team is developing, but they must continue to work.
Al-Taawoun coach said in the press conference that followed the 1-1 draw with Diriyah in the ninth round of the Saudi Professional League: We played a good match, and we were able to create three or four good scoring opportunities. As a coach of the team, I see that there is an improvement in the level, and we must continue to work. I congratulate both teams on the level they performed this evening.
He added: We kept the same lineup compared to the last match, and I admire the previous lineup, as all the team members are important to us. Many matches await us in the coming period, and we will work to rotate players.
Regarding his praise of the defensive appearance, and does this mean that the required development is on the offensive level, Vuk Razovic replied: I am satisfied with the team’s offensive performance, but we lack the finishing touch.
The Esperance women's team succeeded in achieving its first victory this season, at the expense of its guest, Shoal Al Sharqiya, by a clean score, in the round of 16 of the Saudi Federation Cup, to reach the quarter-finals.
Player Nadia Saleh said that the coach's instructions led the team to achieve victory, noting in her interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that this match was her first with the first team.
In Jeddah, Al-Ahly defeated Al-Qunfudhah 7-1, in the confrontation that brought them together at the Jeddah Club Stadium, achieving its first victory in the tournament.
Dana Fahd, Al-Ahly player, confirmed in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that the team faced an opponent that was not easy, noting that the players performed well, and harmony appeared between them on the field, which contributed to achieving the victory.
NEOM also defeated Jeddah Star by ten goals to two.
NEOM player Azza confirmed that the coach’s talk between halftime was a great incentive in terms of simple play and reaching the goal by scoring more goals.
Al-Ittihad also defeated Al-Hejaz with a score of 5-1, and Hala Khashoggi confirmed that their passage to the quarter-finals is an important achievement, while she considered achieving the Saudi Women’s Federation Cup to be the ultimate goal, pointing to the difficulty of the confrontation against Al-Hijaz in terms of their cohesive defense, which made the task difficult for Al-Ittihad.
For his part, Raul Rodriguez, Al-Ittihad women’s coach, praised the team’s level, noting that Al-Ittihad with this victory completed the first stage of the Saudi Women’s Football Federation Cup, stressing their great enthusiasm to compete for the title.
The round of 16 stage of the tournament will resume next November 13 with four matches in Al-Khobar, Qatif, Riyadh and Medina, where Al-Qadisiyah will host its counterpart Al-Yarmouk, Al-Ittihad Al-Nosour will play its match against Al-Hilal, Al-Nasr will receive its counterpart Al-Shams, and Al-Ula will face Al-Himma.
The Al-Qadisiyah team recorded many gains from its recent victory over Abha, which went beyond earning three points to take the lead in the Saudi Professional League as the first spoils, benefiting from the postponement of Al-Hilal’s match against Riyadh, thus ensuring that it remains in the lead until its next confrontation against Al-Hilal in the expected summit, next Friday, if it succeeds in surpassing Al-Taawoun, on Tuesday, in the matches of the tenth round.
This matter constitutes a great moral motivation for the Al-Qadisiyah team to chart a path to strong competition to win the Saudi Professional League championship for the first year in its history, and it is more prepared than ever to achieve that dream in light of the presence of foreign and local names at a high technical level and the presence of a bench of distinguished substitutes, and under the leadership of an experienced and courageous coach in terms of open play and attack, even against strong teams that have capabilities and experience in competition except for the long breath.
With the end of the first third of the Saudi Professional League Championship, it is clearly evident how many teams are able to compete in the strongest and most difficult tournament. As the league will not include the four teams, Al-Hilal, Al-Nasr, and Al-Ahly, except for Al-Qadisiyah, while Al-Ittihad is still reeling and fluctuating in levels, even if before the last stop it was the only one that had not lost. It even surpassed Al-Nasr, the defending champion, and Al-Qadisiyah, the current leader. However, the lack of competent substitutes may limit its ability to compete in the league and even the AFC Champions League for the elite, as the team exited with one point from two matches.
It may be the first time in the history of Al-Qadisiyah Club that two team games have topped the Premier League competitions, as the football team’s lead coincided with the handball team’s lead, with the Gulf team, the title holder in the last three years, having deferrals and most of the candidates to achieve the handball league.
This superiority achieved by Al-Qadisiyah represents confirmation of the amount of work and the high and skillful expenditure at the same time in order to advance the club in all its games, and that the superiority is not limited to the game of football, which represents the club’s facade.
Returning to Al-Qadisiyah’s gains from winning over Abha and taking the lead, the team overcame the great fatigue that the players suffered after returning from the trip to Uzbekistan, and playing the second round of the AFC Champions League for the elite, where they returned with a draw, which was like a loss compared to the events of the match against Pakhtakor, which succeeded in adjusting in the last minutes from an unconvincing penalty kick for Al-Qadsawiyyin, and this had a qualitative negative impact on the morale of the players, and they were required to quickly turn the continental page and focus. Some of them even needed physical rest, such as the Spanish captain Nacho and striker Quinones, and this is what the coach did when he decided to rest them.
But the injury of the Italian player Retegui was one of the negative events in the match, especially since he was going through a period in his artistic prime, and he scored the first goal for his team in the same match, placing him behind the Englishman Ivan Noni on the scorers list with 6 goals.
The coach will have to rest new names against Al-Taawoun in Al-Qassim, as he wants all his players to be fully prepared for the summit confrontation against Al-Hilal in Dammam.
In response to Asharq Al-Awsat’s question about resting some names to face Al Hilal, Rodgers said: “Resting names and rotating them is necessary in light of the pressure of the matches, and this is what happened against Abha, against whom the confrontation was difficult and we were exhausted. We rested some names while Abha, in return, wanted to win.”
He added: “We are thinking about facing Al-Taawoun, and we will also release several names, but we will not think about the Al-Hilal match until after the next confrontation is completed. “The focus for each match is individual.”
