Italian coach Roberto Mancini has reinstated Al-Nassr right-back Sultan Al-Ghannam to the Saudi national team roster on Friday, in preparation for the matches against Pakistan and Jordan in the fifth and sixth rounds of Group Seven in the AFC joint qualifiers for the 2027 Asian Cup and the 2026 World Cup. Mancini had previously excluded Al-Ghannam along with several other players from the list for the Asian Cup finals hosted in Qatar earlier this year.
The new roster includes goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Absi from Al-Shabab for the first time, along with Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, Marwan Al-Suhufi, and Abdullah Al-Hamdan. Mancini excluded several players, most notably Saleh Al-Shehri and Fawaz Al-Suqoor, while captain Salman Al-Faraj remains unavailable.
Mancini stated after excluding Al-Ghannam, who has 30 international caps, from the recent Asian tournament, "He does not want to join us, and we have talked to him many times," adding that those who refused to participate for non-technical reasons would not be called up, "What happened here is strange and has never occurred in my coaching career."
The Saudi national team will visit their Pakistani counterpart on June 6, before hosting the Jordanian team on June 11 in the capital, Riyadh. The "Green" tops Group Seven with ten points, three points ahead of Jordan, and five ahead of Tajikistan, while Pakistan is at the bottom of the group with no points.
Here is the lineup:
- Goalkeepers: Mohammed Al-Owais, Ahmed Al-Asmari, Raghd Najjar, Mohammed Al-Yami, Mohammed Al-Absi
- Defenders: Ali Al-Lajami, Awn Al-Sulouli, Ali Al-Bulaihi, Hassan Kadash, Hassan Al-Tambakti, Rayan Hamid, Muteb Al-Harbi, Mohammed Al-Braik, Saud Abdulhamid, Sultan Al-Ghannam
- Midfielders: Abdullah Al-Khaibari, Mukhtar Ali, Abbas Al-Hassan, Nasser Al-Dosari, Mohammed Kanno, Faisal Al-Ghamdi, Musab Al-Juwair, Salem Al-Dosari, Abdulrahman Ghareeb, Sami Al-Najai, Ayman Yahya, Ahmed Al-Ghamdi
- Forwards: Feras Al-Buraykan, Abdullah Radif, Abdullah Al-Hamdan, Marwan Al-Suhufi
