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The National Team's Problem Lies in Them!!

M. Talal Al-Qashqari

Date of publication: July 6, 2026 01:37 KSA

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After watching the current World Cup, I declare with full mental faculties that I no longer side with those who blame the system of allowing 8 foreign players in our league for the decline in the Saudi national team's level. The problem is not the abundance of foreigners, but rather the weak utilization of them, for which our football authorities, clubs, Saudi players, and our biased football media bear full responsibility.

When the state—may God reward it—saw the scarcity, if not absence, of European clubs'—the world's best—desire to sign our players, it launched its massive football project, bringing the world's best players to our league and providing our clubs and players a rare opportunity for development—an opportunity that previous generations would have dreamed of. Moreover, the presence of 8 foreign players does not eliminate the Saudi player; it retains at least 3 starting Saudi players per team, totaling at least 54 players, from whom a strong national team can be formed if they are properly selected and prepared. Therefore, hanging failure on the peg of foreigners is nothing but an escape from confronting the real causes. Responsibility is shared by our authorities, which failed to nurture this great project; our clubs, which preoccupied themselves with winning local championships by any means, perhaps even the worst, rather than focusing on developing Saudi players; our players, who settled for huge professional salaries without justification before achieving any accomplishments, so the national team's ambition declined and its global competitiveness weakened; and the media bias that placed club interests above national interests, so every failure was interpreted through favoritism rather than national interest. The foreigners are not the problem; they are a historic opportunity that should have produced a strong, not a weak, national team. If the current situation continues, nothing will change, even if clubs play 11 Saudi players each—like the sun rising and news appearing.

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