MbS made the remarks at an annual speech to the advisory Shura Council, which he gave on behalf of his father, King Salman
mena9 hours ago
France striker Djibril Cisse suffered a broken leg after a challenge from China’s Zheng Zhi in a warm-up match for the 2006 World Cup, ruling the former Liverpool striker out of the finals.
“There are so many superstars in the Portugese team, especially Cristiano Ronaldo. We didn’t want to see a repeat of the Cisse tragedy. We don’t want a World Cup without Cristiano Ronaldo because of our fault,” Gao told Chinese media.
“We played conservatively on the pitch because our players wanted to hurt neither themselves nor the Portuguese players.” China, who have qualified for the World Cup just once, will not be going to South Africa having fallen at the first hurdle in Asian qualifying two years ago.
Although an ongoing match-fixing scandal has only made Chinese football’s already miserable reputation worse, Gao’s team gave it a surprise boost when they won the East Asian championship last month.
A draw with Japan, a first victory over South Korea for more than 30 years and another victory over Hong Kong have clearly given Gao confidence that China are ready to take on tougher opponents.
“From this year on, Team China will not be satisfied by just playing Asian teams. We will upgrade our opponents in friendlies,” Gao, whose team are 83rd in the FIFA world rankings, told the Soccer News.
MbS made the remarks at an annual speech to the advisory Shura Council, which he gave on behalf of his father, King Salman
mena9 hours ago
His visit to Cairo aimed to salvage stalled negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the conflict
world9 hours ago
The group accused Israel, which has so far refused to comment, as US denies involvement
mena9 hours ago
Hundreds of pagers belonging to the armed group exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday, killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others
world10 hours ago
They view it as a pivotal move toward fostering inclusivity and diversity in corporate structures
uae10 hours ago
Israel has not yet commented on the explosions
europe10 hours ago
The meeting saw engaging discussions on Sinomach’s strategic initiatives and ongoing projects in the region
economy10 hours ago