Saudi Arabia World Cup 2026 team guide

This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network , a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June. The plan Where to start? Perhaps towards the end of April when Hervé Renard was fired as head coach and then replaced by Georgios Donis. The Greek winger, formerly of Blackburn, picked his squad without overseeing a game. Renard was in charge from 2019 to 2023 and oversaw the famous win against Argentina at the Qatar World Cup, but broke football’s “never go back” rule in October 2024, succeeding his successor Roberto Mancini, who never looked like the right fit. The Frenchman’s second spell was underwhelming and without the tournament’s expansion the Green Falcons would not have made it, and only scraped through as it was. “That’s football … Saudi Arabia have qualified for the World Cup seven times, including twice with me,” Renard said as he left. “And there’s only one coach who has led them through both the qualifiers and the World Cup; that’s me, in 2022. …