Your guide to World Cup: What happened when Arab nations met?

CAIRO – 22 January 2018: The World Cup draw put Egypt with their Arab neighbors, Saudi Arabia in group A alongside Uruguay and the hosts, Russia. Football fans in the Arab area are looking forward for the Derby between the Egyptians and the Saudi Arabians.

Arab teams have only faced each other in the World Cup on two occasions before and Saudi Arabia was involved in both games.

The first game between two Arab teams was in the 1994 World Cup in the USA where Saudi Arabia played against Morocco in the group stage.

The draw put the Arab teams alongside Belgium and Netherlands in Group F.

Saudi Arabia won the game 2-1 thanks to two goals from Sami El-Jaber and Fouad Anwar while the Moroccan goal came from Mohammed Chaouch.



The victory helped Saudi Arabia to reach the second round being the group runner up after defeating Belgium 1-0 thanks to a magical goal from Saeed Al-Owairan.



Saudi Arabia lost in the round of 16 3-1 against Sweden who went on to get the Bronze Medal in that World Cup.

Twelve years later, Saudi Arabia opened their participation at 2006 World Cup in Germany against Tunisia.

The draw put the Arab teams in Group H alongside Spain and Ukraine.

The game ended 2-2 after a tense game. Tunisia opened the score through Ziad Jaziri and Saudi Arabians equalized before the half time through Yasser El-Qahtani.

Saudi Arabia scored the second goal through Sami Al-Jaber and Tunisians equalized before the final whistle with a strike from Radhi Jaïdi.


This result was their only positive outcome from both teams as each lost their remaining games failing to reach the second round.