Asian Cup 2023: Saudi Arabia aim to keep star on the rise as continent's best head to Qatar | OneFootball

@MalikOuzia_

There was a moment, two days into last winter's World Cup, when results had some commentators rushing to make bleak assessments about the state of Asia's challenge.

The hosts and reigning continental champions, Qatar, had flopped on a miserable opening night, before Iran, touted as potentially tricky customers, were swept aside in a thrashing by England.

By tournament's end, however, a different picture had emerged, courtesy of a string of statement wins: by Japan over Germany and Spain, South Korea over Portugal and, perhaps most memorably, Saudi Arabia from behind against Lionel Messi and Argentina, the eventual champions.

Bookmakers rate the former pair as favourites for the Asian Cup that begins back in Qatar on Friday afternoon, and unsurprisingly so. Japan have been in prolific form and since beating Germany again, 4-1 in Wolfsburg in September, while the Koreans no longer look so reliant on the goals of Heung-min Son, with Wolves's Hwang Hee-chan flying and Bayern Munich defender Kim Min-Jae among European club football's best.

Roberto Mancini is in the Saudi Arabia dugout

AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, a Saudi side again made up entirely of native club players but now coached by former Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini are rated dark horses.

Results under the man who won Euro 2020 with Italy have been mixed, rounded off this week with a warm-up win over Hong Kong and a goalless draw with Palestine, sure to be one of the major stories themselves given the situation at home. Hope, though, remains of a first triumph in the competition since 1996, one that would serve notice that the nation's emergence as a footballing force is not entirely an administrative affair fuelled by petro-wealth.

That the Saudi star is rising fast is, like it or not, inarguable. Since that famous victory over Argentina, the country has been awarded hosting rights for the Club World Cup next summer and, conveniently, named as the sole bidder for the international equivalent in 2034. The riches of its domestic league have proven enough to attract some of football's most high-profile players despite criticism over human rights issues, while the club it effectively owns, Newcastle, have returned to the Champions League, albeit briefly.

But within continental parameters, Mancini's task remains the same as each of his predecessors since the turn of the century: to restore the Green Falcons to their perch of the 1980s and 1990s, when, long before sport became its vehicle for more global ambitions, they ruled Asia with three wins in four editions.

Australia and Iran round out a quintet of headline contenders, the former having reached the knockout stages in Qatar and run Argentina close, while the latter could prove better than the bare form of that tournament given the political backdrop that overshadowed their campaign under Carlos Queiroz.