Preview: Serbia vs Saudi Arabia – prediction, team news, lineups

Serbia will welcome Saudi Arabia to the TSC Arena in Backa Topola for Tuesday’s worldwide pleasant.

The two nations will each be seeking to bounce again from heavy defeats of their first outings of the March worldwide window. 

Match preview

After that includes at 4 of the final 5 World Cup finals, Serbia should wait at the very least 4 years to make their subsequent look in soccer’s largest event. 

That is as a result of they fell quick in final yr’s qualifying marketing campaign, ending in third place in Group Okay after profitable 4, drawing one and shedding three of their eight qualifiers.

Their 13-level tally left them 11 factors adrift of group winners England and only a level away from Albania, who superior to the playoff stage.

Veljko Paunovic bore little accountability for his nation’s qualifying failure, given the truth that he took over the reins forward of the ultimate two matches, which resulted in a 2-0 defeat to England and a 2-1 win over Latvia.

Serbia began their 2026 schedule with a heavy 3-0 defeat to European champions Spain on the Estadio de la Cerámica – six months after Paunovic’s Real Oviedo facet misplaced 2-0 to Villarreal on the similar venue.

The 48-yr-previous, who was sacked by Oviedo in October, will take his nationwide facet again house for his or her first-ever recreation towards Saudi Arabia, with the hosts concentrating on again-to-again wins on house soil.

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In distinction to their opponents, Saudi Arabia might be one of many 48 groups on the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA.

After progressing by the second spherical of qualifying, Saudi Arabia missed out on automated qualification within the third stage, ending behind Japan and Australia with 13 factors from 10 matches.

As a outcome, they needed to come by a mini spherical-robin event in October, which noticed them beat Indonesia and draw with Iraq to pip the latter to high spot on objectives scored.

The first-place end sealed Saudi Arabia’s place in a 3rd consecutive World Cup, the place they are going to face two-time winners Uruguay, 2010 champions Spain and event debutants Cape Verde.

While they could be in a difficult group, the Green Falcons will head to North America with hopes of reaching the knockout rounds for the primary time for the reason that 1994 event.

However, they might want to keep away from outcomes and performances like Friday’s forgettable 4-0 defeat to Egypt if they’re to attain that goal.

Serbia kind (all competitions):

L L W L W L 

Saudi Arabia kind (all competitions):

W W L W L L 

Team News

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Paunovic may make a number of modifications to his Serbia facet in a bid to share out the minutes throughout the 2 March friendlies.

Predrag Rajkovic, Strahinja Erakovic, Stefan Bukinac and Kosta Nedeljkovic are in rivalry to start out Tuesday’s fixture.

There is also beginning spots for Fulham’s Sasa Lukic, Atalanta’s Lazar Samardzic and AEK Athens’ Luka Jovic. 

As for the guests, they’re unable to name upon Moteb Al-Harbi on account of damage, whereas Ali Lajami and Hassan Kadesh have been omitted from the travelling social gathering for the journey to Serbia.

Renard has opted to name up goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais following Friday’s heavy defeat to Egypt.

Rayan Hamed, Muteb Al-Mufarrij, Naif Masoud, Marwan Al-Sahafi and Abdullah Al-Hamdan may all come into Renard’s pondering for Tuesday’s fixture.

Serbia attainable beginning lineup:

Rajkovic; Nedeljkovic, Milenkovic, Erakovic, Bukinac; Gudelj, Lukic; Birmancevic, Samardzic, Kostic; Jovic

Saudi Arabia attainable beginning lineup:

Al-Aqidi; Abdulhamid, Hamed, Al-Amri, Al-Mufarrij; Kanno, Masoud; Al-Faraj, Al-Hamdan, Al-Sahafi; Al-Buraikan

We say: Serbia 2-1 Saudi Arabia

While each groups could have suffered heavy defeats on Friday, Serbia’s loss came about towards a a lot more durable team, and we predict they are going to shortly decide themselves up from their disappointing outcome towards Spain to return to profitable methods in Tuesday’s house fixture. 

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