Football: Soccer-Saudi coach Mancini stays true to his philosophy as he battles selection critics

DOHA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia coach Roberto Mancini has come under criticism for his team selection at the Asian Cup but the Italian coach said on Wednesday that his policy is to pick young players so they can gain experience as he tried to build a team.

Saudi Arabia scraped a 2-1 win over Oman in their group opener and qualified for the last 16 after they beat nine-man Kyrgyzstan. They are top of Group F ahead of their last group game against second-placed Thailand (four points).

However, Saudi Arabia arrived in Qatar under a storm cloud of team selection after Mancini said three players opted out of the camp — a claim the players denied.

Players from the squad that famously beat Argentina at the 2022 World Cup were not picked while former Saudi skipper Yasser Al-Qahtani called Mancini a ‘coward’ for leaving behind players he said had served the national team well in the past.

“My policy is that the players who are ready to play will play. I have 26 players. Some are famous, others are young, but if you win it’s as a team, not because of one player,” Mancini told reporters ahead of Thursday’s game.

“We need to have a strong team with a strong mentality. We need them to think they can win all games as a team together. I use players that I feel can be important now and for the future. We have a mix of some young players and senior players.

“In the next month we need to change and increase the number of young players for the future. For now we have to think about this tournament, which is very important for us.”

Despite the murmurs of discontent on the outside, Mancini said the players are in good spirits in the camp as they look to win their fourth title and their first since 1996.

“I’ve managed this team for four months. Sometimes it’s not enough, you need more time. But we’ve improved a lot in four months and we can improve in the future,” he said.

“Can we win? I don’t know, it’s a long road but we want to try.

“We had a lot of chances in the last game and didn’t score enough, we have to improve this. But it’s important we’re able to create chances. After that, probably we will score.”

Mancini also denied claims he said Saudi Arabia do not have a chance after naming Japan, Iran, South Korea and Australia as favourites last week.

“I only said there are four teams — Japan, Korea, Australia and Iran — who are very high in the rankings and they have more chances to win. But I never said we can’t win,” he said.

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Doha; Editing by Christian Radnedge)