Four years on, 8-0 hiding haunts Saudis

Brazilian head coach of the Saudi Arabian football team Paqueta gives a televison interview outside his hotel at Bad Nauheim Park in Frankfurt, on June 11. Saudi Arabia will seek to erase the "humiliation" of their 8-0 drubbing at the last World Cup when they kick off their campaign against Tunisia.

Saudi Arabia will seek to erase the "humiliation" of their 8-0 drubbing at the last World Cup when they kick off their campaign against Tunisia, their players and coach said.

The Saudis have played a series of warm-up games against European teams to avoid a repeat of the huge loss to Germany, which was the biggest World Cup defeat in 20 years.

"We wanted to improve our defence and we don't want to make the same mistakes as in 2002," said coach Marcos Paqueta.

The 'Sons of the Desert' also lost 1-0 to Cameroon and 3-0 to Ireland in 2002 in a bitterly disappointing campaign that sent shockwaves through Arab football.

They have lost to Turkey, Belgium and the Czech Republic in recent friendlies, but beat fellow finalists Togo and hammered 15 goals past a German regional side.

Asian player of the year Hamad Al Montashari said the 8-0 scoreline was uppermost in the players' minds as they prepare for Wednesday's opener here.

"First of all we have to overcome the humiliation during the 2002 World Cup," he said.

"Secondly we will be looking forward to getting three points against Tunisia in order to have a chance of qualifying for the second round."

Paqueta said veteran striker Sami Al Jaber, who is attending his fourth World Cup, will start on the bench as he recovers from injury.

But the coach said the team was generally fit and well prepared.

"We are mentally and physically prepared for the game and we're looking for a good balance between offensive and defensive," Paqueta said.

"We're very well prepared."

The last World Cup was a dreadful let-down for Saudi fans after a promising debut eight years previously when they reached the second round.

Since those wins against Morocco and Belgium in 1994, the three-time Asian champions are still searching for another victory with just one draw with South Africa punctuating a run of five defeats.

Qualifying for four World Cups in a row remains a big achievement for the oil-rich desert kingdom where football was banned until 1951.

Saudi Arabia begin their Group H campaign with the all-Arab encounter with Tunisia before playing Spain and Ukraine.