Riyadh: Playing Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cup opening game two weeks ago has handed Qatar a distinct advantage for Wednesday’s final, according to Maroons assistant coach Serge Romano.
Qatar drew 1-1 with The Green Falcons in that curtain-raiser but it gave coach Djamel Belmadi’s side an insight into how to handle the Saudis on home soil, said Romano.
The Maroons may have won just two to Saudi’s nine in 20 previous Gulf Cup encounters, but Romano believes the Qataris should back themselves to pull off an upset at the King Fahd International Stadium.
“We know this team,” he said. “We played them in the first game in the competition and that’s to our advantage. We know their players, their faults and we know that maybe we can do something good against them.
“They won’t be a surprise to us, we have the possibility to win and that’s why we are here. We are not afraid, we know the value of Saudi is better than us, but we also know that we can catch the cup and that’s why we are confident.”
Qatar ambled through the group as runners-up with three draws against Saudi 1-1, Yemen 0-0 and Bahrain 0-0, before beating Oman 3-1 in Sunday’s semi-final. Meanwhile, Saudi recovered from their opening draw with Qatar to top the group with two wins over Bahrain 3-0 and Yemen 1-0. But Romano defended their form so far.
“For a lot of the boys it was their first tournament, we have a young team and they were a little afraid at the beginning because they didn’t know their level. But after that we did well and we have continued playing good football. We have played confident and creative attacking football with a lot of chances to score, that’s how we’ve played since and that’s how we will play on Wednesday.”
Of Qatar’s ability to overcome the hosts on home soil, Romano added: “We play against the organisers of the cup, and we know they have a lot of fans, but motivation won’t be a problem, we know that this is our last step to get the cup and we want to try and catch it.
“Before we played Yemen in the group who also had a big crowd and noise and we learnt a lot about how to cope with those conditions. We know that it will happen in the final, we expect the stadium to be full and for it to be a great party, a great moment in life, but I think we are OK to face that.”
Asked about critics of Qatar, who may not feel the side deserve to be in the final after their lacklustre opening form, Romano replied: “We try to put critics out of our mind and focus only on the game and only look to what we can do. All these things are out of our mind and we focus only on this. There are better things to go on than criticism.”
