Adel Aqla, the former Kuwait national team star, sparked controversy with strong words after the meeting between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia, he insisted, were not the better side. The image the Saudis projected, he argued, came only as a result of what Kuwait offered on the day.
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Speaking on the "Abu Dhabi Sports" channel, Aqla said: "I don't know what method we played with against the Saudi national team, even the individual solutions didn't appear because the collective work was not there." He criticised the way Kuwait's players handled the game, pointing to an absence of collective organisation that showed clearly in their performance.
"Even in the transitions, the Blues did not show against the Saudi national team," the former star added. Kuwait, he insisted, failed to exploit the spaces or create the required threat during spells of the match, and that alone made Saudi Arabia look the sharper team on the pitch.
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The gap between the two sides, Aqla went on to argue, does not reflect any clear individual superiority for Saudi Arabia. Kuwait's players, he stressed, possess abilities no less than those of their rivals.
"The Saudi national team's players are not better than the Kuwait national team's players," Aqla said. In his view, Kuwait's own display handed Saudi Arabia the advantage rather than any real difference in quality between the two squads.
He signed off with a blunt verdict: "The Kuwait national team is the one that made the Saudi national team appear with this advantage." Much of the responsibility for how the encounter looked, then, falls on the Blues and the way they approached it.