Mancini: The lead goes to Japan and we are competing with Australia to qualify

Italian Roberto Mancini, coach of the Saudi national team, acknowledged the strength of his Japanese counterpart after Thursday’s 2-0 loss in the third round of the third group of the Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.

Mancini said, in the press conference: “Today we played a good match against the Japanese team, which is considered one of the best teams. We did not concede many chances, but we were not able to score, and overall we played a good match.”

The Saudi national team coach added: “I previously mentioned that we should have created many opportunities against Japan.”

He continued: “We knew that the Japanese team was the biggest candidate to top the group, and the competition would be between us and the Australian team.”

The Saudi team occupies third place in the third group standings with 4 points, behind the Australian runner-up with the same score on goal difference and behind the leading Japanese team with 9 points.