Historic figures from the match between the Green Falcons and Argentina

At the beginning of its career, with its sixth participation as the most Arab national team in the World Cup finals, the Saudi green blew up the first pleasant surprises for the Arabs in the Qatar World Cup 2022, so that Lusail Stadium remains a witness to Saudi supremacy, and Lusail is the Saudi mascot of luck, after the first match on this stadium, in which Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia won in the Saudi-Egyptian Super Cup against Zamalek, the Green Falcons were able to turn the tables on the Argentine national team in their first round in the group stage, and they succeeded in achieving a historic victory against the Latin American champions and the most prominent candidates to win the World Cup.

Below we list for you the most important numbers for Al-Akhdar’s historic confrontation in front of tango dancers.

To begin with, Saudi Arabia reached its fourth victory in its 16 World Cup matches (2 draws and 10 losses). The Saudi national team also achieved its first victory in the opening of the World Cup, where it lost in previous versions in 4 matches in the first round and tied in a single match against Tunisia, and became the first Asian team to score against Argentina with more than one goal in one match in the history of the World Cup, and it also became the second Asian team to defeat a South American team in the history of the World Cup after Japan’s victory over Colombia in 2018.

Saleh Al-Shehri became the third oldest player to score for the Saudi national team in the World Cup (29 years and 21 days), after Youssef Al-Thunayan (34 years and 218 days) and Sami Al-Jaber (33 years and 185 days). And Al-Akhdar needed only 6 minutes to defeat the most prominent candidates for the World Cup title (the first goal in m48, and the second in m53), and the Saudi national team was able to end the longest series of the Argentine national team without defeat in all tournaments (36 matches since July 2019 when it lost to Brazil with two clean goals, and prevented it from equaling Italy’s number with 37 matches without defeat.

And Saudi Arabia achieved the first victory for a non-European team over Argentina in the World Cup since Cameroon won in 1990, and for the first time the Argentine national team lost a match in the World Cup after scoring the opening goal in the match since 1958 (against West Germany 1-3), and Lionel Messi became the first Argentine player to score in 4 different World Cups (2006, 2014, 2018 and 2022), beating Batistuta and Diego Maradona. He also became the fifth player to score in 4 different World Cups after Pele, Uwe Seller, Miroslav Klose and Cristiano Ronaldo, making Saudi Arabia the first Arab team to win over a South American team in the history of the World Cup.