The Men's National Football/Soccer Team (Al-Saqour)

 By Saoud Moussa Baccus

The Saudi Arabia men’s national football team, founded in 1956, represents Saudi Arabia in international competitions. Their success comes mostly from participating in the Asian Football Federation (AFC) Asian Cup in which they first participated in 1984. Following their maiden participation, they would qualify for the next four Asian Cup Finals in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000; they won two of them, in 1988 and 1996. In 2007, they qualified for yet another final but lost against Iraq; since then, they have not missed another AFC Finals.

In the FIFA World Cups, the national team had its share of success and failures. Their first foray into the World Cup Finals was in 1994. They reached the round of 16 and thereby became the second Arab nation after Morocco in 1986 to make it that far. They would go on and qualify for the next three World Cups but failed to win a single game; there followed a 12-year hiatus before they resurfaced for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia where they lost their first two games and won their last against Egypt.

They qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and scored their famous win against Argentina in their opening game but failed to qualify for the last 16 after they lost against Poland and Mexico.

Known as the Green Falcons (Al-Saqour), the men’s national team usually play in green and white.

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