Saudi Arabia is the success of a conservative football force - but how long?

When talking about Saudi Arabia, we imagine a very hot, sand-filled country but full of oil and gas reserves as well as the rich Sheikhs riding on camels. Well, this applies to every country from the Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia included.

And being rich also give power, to order the others. Saudi Arabia has it all. With the vast oil wealth, the country began a rapid modernisation in the mid-20th century, and by the 1990s, it is one of the 20 biggest economies, a position it still stands today and is also part of the G20. Football in the country also enjoys the advantage of being rich: it established a national football league in 1975, paved the way to become fully professional in 2007. As for the result, Saudi Arabia's fortune increased over time. Saudi Arabia has won two first Asian Cup titles in 1984 and 1988, which were also the country's debuts. The development accelerated when Saudi Arabia qualified for the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States - where the Saudis impressed by reaching the round of sixteen, including a famous win over Belgium, where Saeed Al-Owairan dribbled from 55 meters before scoring, a goal that was regarded as one of the greatest goals in World Cup history.

But while Saudi Arabia is able to maintain its dominance in Asia, its successes in the world faded. Saudi Arabia has never progressed from the group stage again, with its worst happened in 2002 when the Saudis left the tournament with no goal and no point. Furthermore, the country's Asian Cup fortune also faded in the following, as the nation failed to register a seventh final appearance after creating history for appearing in five consecutive AFC Asian Cup finals (winning three of them), their sixth final happened in 2007 after being eliminated from the group stage of the 2004 edition.

To be sure, no one denies that Saudi Arabia is an Asian football power. But the country's football vision is vastly different from most of the world - it has rebuffed anything about sending players abroad - rather it keeps them home and buys players of other nations to play in their league, a clear assurance for Saudi Arabia. This policy has been implemented since the 1970s and has not changed.

Frankly, Saudi Arabia's achievements are no joke but it is slowly becoming indifferent as their opponents start to close their gaps. Japan and Australia have already done so, these two will be Saudi Arabia's opponents in the final round. South Korea and Iran aren't easy either. But more importantly, Saudi Arabia is facing competition from China, Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Thailand; Saudi clubs aren't scaring their rivals longer due to this. But the Saudis continue to believe in wasting money of buying foreign players to strengthen its domestic national side, something that was once very familiar to the path England used to be and ended in failure. Why?

It's simple: the Asian football structure is based on hierarchy, a clear sense that helps explain why Saudi Arabia doesn't need to worry despite being scorned abroad and even by several famous Saudi footballers, most notable figure to stand against this kind of nativist league development is Sami Al-Jaber, a famous legend of Saudi Arabia who used to study coaching in Scotland and France.

To think about Al-Jaber, he was one of the first to truly condemn this kind of establishment, especially after Saudi Arabia was knocked out of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the tournament in which he played. Sami had almost moved to England for a better career at Wolverhampton, but the move didn't materialise because of the Saudi Federation's interference. Hence the dislike.

Again, we look back to the system of the AFC (Asian Football Confederation), we can understand why it is despised by many countries. The AFC has organised tournaments like the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup but with little competitiveness, with countries that have higher point criteria will directly play in the Champions League instead of an open qualification; the remaining will have to be in the AFC Cup. The qualification was also organised poorly, just one/two and done. This system clearly benefits the rich ones, but not the less developed. Saudi Arabia, you know where they stand.

Thanks to a system like this, Saudi Arabia can frequently bring its clubs to the main Asian competition - the Champions League. With the wealth, it has already had everything. Big competition, numerous glories - it is for us to envy. Adding with the AFC being notoriously corrupt, it might stay that way.

Returning back to the qualification, Saudi Arabia's campaign wasn't perfect at the start, but solid in the end: six wins and two draws sent Saudi Arabia to the third round in fashion, the 3-0 win over Uzbekistan in the final fixture condemned Uzbekistan to the second place but also disqualified the Central Asians in process. Led by Frenchman Hervé Renard, the coach who led Zambia and Ivory Coast to African glories, as well as Morocco to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Saudis were added with the French flavours of skilful football, something that was what they achieved back in 1994 under the Argentine boss Jorge Solari. Saudi Arabia is further reinforced by the will to bring its youth ranks into the senior side. Its most promising young star is Turki Al-Ammar, a talented artist who was responsible for the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship conquest of the Saudis; Abdullah Al-Hamdan, a tall, muscular player with a powerful ability to score from the air; Firas Al-Buraikan, a prolific young striker with blessed feet. Three Saudi players that have achieved the status as veterans are Fahad Al-Muwallad, who is older than Al-Buraikan, Al-Hamdan and Al-Ammar just five years old, but already established himself as a ball manipulator; Salman Al-Faraj and Yasser Al-Shahrani are also exceptional players with a large experience in defence. Other important key players include Mukhtar Ali, the Somali-born Saudi player who used to play in the Netherlands, or Abdulrahman Ghareeb.

The third round of the qualification also got some blessings: they were reunited with Australia and Japan, both are strong but not invulnerable to the Saudis. China and Vietnam seem to be tough, but neither of them is great enough to deliver a blow. Oman is a bit more challenging due to commons, but it is not a problem for Saudi Arabia if the Saudis can read what Oman is doing.

Still, there are weaknesses: Saudi Arabia is notorious for being very poor in defence against teams that are equal to them, Saudi players are renowned for being reckless, despite its fearless reputation. It's the poor organisation that made Saudi Arabia dropping points in a number of important games. Nobody forgets how Saudi Arabia was unable to overcome North Korea and South Korea in the 2010 FIFA World Cup; or how they fell to Oman by its sloppy attacking skills in the 2014 qualifiers. Moreover, the arrogance, which is rooted in its perceived nativist superiority, led Saudi Arabia to suffer a number of blunders.

Australia and Japan may be Saudi Arabia's main opponents - but these teams promise to be different than the 2018 qualifiers that they underestimated Saudi determination - Australia and Japan are certainly informed and will carefully watch every Saudi move. China and Oman are surely problematic too: Saudi Arabia has lost to China back in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, while grouping with Oman is also a double-edged sword since Saudi and Omani players share a common style of play. Vietnam, perceived as the weakest team in the group, still offers some troublesome feelings as Vietnam's ability to surprise can change the prediction, as they have proved to be back in the 2007 and 2019 Asian Cup.

If Saudi Arabia keeps its head cool in the necessity, they will qualify, but the bigger issue is down to the earth: will Saudi Arabia prove that its conservative football system works, or it is just to say this is because they are an AFC member? And if Saudi Arabia doesn't qualify, what will be the strategy of this continental powerhouse in the future - stick with the same formula or move forward?

It's hard to make clear what are the Saudis doing... And one may look with a question about it. Saudi Arabia is determined to qualify - the country has the resources to do, but its North Korea-type football development appears not so appealing for the others.