Saudis in the Semi-finals

Saudi Arabia have continued their successful Asian Cup campaign and reached the semi-finals with a tough win over Uzbekistan in Jakarta. Yassir al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Mousa scored for Saudi Arabia while Pavel Solomin scored Uzbekistan’s only goal.

Our team took the lead very early as the third minute saw Abdul-Rahman al-Qahtani makes a long run in the left flank and sends a low cross into the box. The Uzbek goalkeeper touched the ball to deflect it away from Malek, but Yassir was quick on the rebound and scored the opening goal.

Despite the early goal, Saudis have failed to build on that lead and had to undergo a heavy pressure for the next 30 minutes, but the Saudi defenders and keeper performed excellently to prevent the Uzbek from equalizing. Yassir had an easy chance to double his team’s lead but his shot went just wide.

saudi players celebrate

Not much has changed in the second half as Uzbekistan continued their quest to score but were denied. However, they have become more and more frustrated as they failed to do that. This frustration and the desire to equalize have caused them to leave more spaces behind, and Taiseer, al-Bahri and Ahmed al-Mousa managed to get decent chances.

It was al-Mousa who started a beautiful move passing the ball to Aziz, to Yassir, and back to al-Mousa who cornered the ball elegantly to the right of the Uzbek keeper with fifteen minutes to go. Uzbekistan scored their goal six minutes later by Solomin due to some poor marking in the box, but Saudis finally emerged victorious and advanced to the semi-finals where they will face title holders Japan on Wednesday.

P.S. Don’t miss the gorgeous Saudi team wallpaper designed by my friend Bandar Raffah.

Quickies

Just some short commentary on some stories from Arab News today:

5 Women and Two Men Held in Buraidah
Saudi security forces on Thursday detained five women and two men in an incident that officials linked to weapons possession but which an activist said followed a sit-in by the women.

My friend Rasheed writes about the story that has been making the headlines in the blogosphere in the past few days. Unfortunately, they don’t offer much more than what we already know. Many people here are very disappointed with the way the government chose to deal with this issue. It is sad that none of the Arabic newspaper here has reported the story.

The Hospitality of Justice
I conclude this article with a request to my dear brothers and sisters. You must visit the general court in Jeddah to see for yourselves the truth of what’s happening there. And I’m sure that will only increase your trust in the judicial system and induce you to join me in my prayers for them to live long and remain always alert, concerned about people’s rights and making sure they are not denied justice. Amen.

When I read this column by Amr al-Faisal when it appeared first in al-Watan a few days ago, I immediately recalled my own suffering when I had to do some work at the court here two years ago. It was exactly the way he described it, if not worse. We have been saying for a long time that the whole legal system is in desperate need to be reformed. The new code that was released few months ago was a good, though small, step in the right direction, but we are yet to see a real change.

Citizens Complain About Poor DSL Services
A number of citizens are calling on Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and various service-providing companies to provide better DSL services. “We pay a lot of money but we get poor service and technical problems,” said one Saudi quoted in a report recently in Al-Watan daily whose name was not given.

They have been complaining about it for a long time and I’m afraid they will be for until other companies enter the market to end STC monopoly. As far as I can recall, the new telcos to operate in the kingdom soon will be allowed to build their own cable networks. So till then, I think STC will continue to cut their prices, and that’s as much as they can do because looking back at their history they have never been interested in improving their services.

TV Told Not to Promote Regionalism
Abdullah Al-Jasser, undersecretary at the Ministry of Culture and Information, has criticized Saudi owners of satellite channels for promoting regionalism in a recent press statement. He charged them with promoting narrow-minded regionalism.

This is not the first time Abdullah al-Jasser says something absurd, and most probably won’t be the last time. This is the same guy who described electronic media as “dangerous” and was very excited to take part in some Arab meeting to monitor the internet. The man seems irritated about the appearance of some local TV channels without his ministry’s permission, and irritated even more about the fact that he can’t ban them.

Women and Reformist Lawyer Arrested

Following their demonstration outside a state security HQ in Qassim, Rima al-Juraish and four other women were arrested today. Moreover, Abdullah al-Hamid, a well-known reformist and attorney of Rima al-Juraish’s husband Mohammed al-Hamily, was also arrested. Al-Hamid, who was previously jailed in the past after demanding constitutional reforms but was later pardoned by King Abdullah, has asked the authorities to allow his family to bring him his medicines. Read more here and here (Arabic).

UPDATE: The Interior Ministry have issued a statement confirming the arrests, claiming they took place after a search for weapons at Juraish’s home which uncovered three machine guns, three revolvers and some ammunition. However, it is said that it was the security forces themselves who brought the weapons when they raided the house at dawn, then planted them in a sofa and under floor tiles before arresting the group.

Saudi Arabia Outclass Bahrain

Saudi Arabia are through to the Asian Cup quarter-finals after they brushed aside Bahrain 4-0 in their last match in Group D. Korea also made it to the knock-out stage after they beat co-hosts Indonesia 1-0. Saudi Arabia and Korea will face Uzbekistan and Iran, respectively, in the next round.

First let me say that I have not expected our team to beat Bahrain easily, let alone with a big score like that. Bahrain have become such a rival in the past few years, and their team used to give us some hard time even when we won. Bahrain wanted to win in the time that they could have been through with a draw, and that’s where they made a huge mistake. I have never seen Bahrain play against Saudi Arabia in this kind of open play game before. It is true that such tactic has given them advantage in the first 15 minutes and they were very close to score on several occasions in the first half, but their attempts were blocked by a solid performance of Saudi defense and keeper al-Mosaileem.

yassir and talal

Although Saudi Arabia were the younger side, they knew how to deal with the match. On the 18th minute, Yassir al-Qahtani passed a clever ball over Bahraini defenders to Malek, who barely touches the ball in the way of Ahmed Al-Mousa who enters the box and beats the goal keeper to take the lead for the Green Falcons. Bahrain tried to equalize and had some good chances but could not score.

On the last minute of the first half, Saudi Arabia proved how they can be very dangerous on the counter-attack, when Yassir passed a long ball to Malek on the right flank who sent a low cross to Abdul-Rahman al-Qahtani to easily score the second Saudi goal.

Bahrain have had a good start after the break and could have scored early in the 2nd half but were again denied by al-Mosaileem. It did not, however, take long for Saudis to kill the game on the 68th minute when Taiseer al-Jassim fired a beautiful 30-yard strike into the top right corner of the Bahraini net. With 10 minutes remaining in the game, Taiseer scored again after a sweet play between Malek and Omar. We could have scored more, but at that point of the match it didn’t matter anymore.

Jeddah Film Festival

green monster picIf you are in Jeddah these days, you don’t want to miss this event: the 2nd Jeddah Film Festival or Jeddah Visual Shows Festival, as it is called, was opened at the Ismail Abudawood auditorium at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) last night and will run until Friday. They will be showing 48 films of different lengths and types, including some interesting titles such as “Women Without Shadows” by Haifaa al-Mansour. Arab News have the festival’s schedule, and you can find their official website here. Lucky Jeddawis, I’m officially green with envy!