RIYADH: Saad Al-Shehri, coach of Saudi Arabia’s Olympic football team, has finalized the squad that will travel to Japan for the Games later this month.
He omitted Khaled Al-Dubaish and Abdulrahman Al-Yami from a list of 24 players that had been preparing for Tokyo 2020.
The young Green Falcons are in Group D of the Olympic football tournament and will kick off their campaign against Ivory Coast on July 22, before facing Germany three days later, and finishing off the first stage against reigning champions Brazil on July 28.
The Saudi U-23 squad, which includes Al-Hilal and the senior Saudi national team trio of Salem Al-Dawsari, Yasser Al-Shahrani, and Salman Al-Faraj as official overage players, will leave the Kingdom on Wednesday for Romania to make final preparations for the Olympics.
In its last build-up match on home soil, the Saudi team defeated Uganda 2-0 on Monday. While in the Balkans, the team will play two friendly matches against the Romanian national squad on July 10 and 13. The delegation will depart for Japan immediately after the training camp ends.
The 22 players chosen for the Olympic squad are: Amin Bukhari, Mohammed Al-Rubaie, Zaid Al-Bawardi, Hamad Al-Yami, Khalifa Al-Dawsari, Abdulilah Al-Omari, Saud Abdulhamid, Abdullah Hassoun, Abdulbasit Hindi, Yasser Al-Shahrani, Nasser Al-Omran, Ali Al-Hassan, Salman Al-Faraj, Mukhtar Ali, Abdulrahman Ghareeb, Sami Al-Najei, Ayman Al-Khalif, Turki Al-Ammar, Khalid Al-Ghannam, Ayman Yahya, Salem Al-Dawsari, and Abdullah Al-Hamdan.
