Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay: FIFA World Cup Match Report

Saudi Arabia led at half-time and were pegged back after it. Saudi Arabia 1-1 Uruguay finished level, and the goal Saudi Arabia scored in that first half was the only one they managed in the entire tournament.

That is the fact this match should be remembered for. Across three group games Saudi Arabia scored once and conceded five, with a goalless draw against Cape Verde Islands and a 4-0 defeat to Spain still to come, so the lead they held at the interval here was the high point of their World Cup. They could not protect it, and they never got into that position again.

Uruguay's tournament ran along similar lines. Three goals scored, four conceded, and two points taken from this draw and a 2-2 with Cape Verde Islands, before a 1-0 defeat to Spain in the final round. Neither of these sides won a match in Group H. Both finished on two points, both eliminated, and the point they took off each other on this evening was as close as either came to a genuinely positive result. The equaliser is what made the group's arithmetic what it became: without it, Saudi Arabia would have gone into the last two rounds with a win in hand.

It gave both sides a point that neither could build on. Spain won the group with seven points and no goals conceded across three matches, the only side in the tournament to leave the group stage having kept a clean sheet in every game. Cape Verde Islands took third on three points with a 2:2 record, and their draws with Spain and Saudi Arabia plus the 2-2 with Uruguay made them the only team other than Spain to go unbeaten in Group H.

Saudi Arabia and Uruguay finished level on two points, both out. For Uruguay in particular the shared point reads as an opening missed: their remaining fixtures were against Cape Verde Islands and Spain, and this was the match the draw hurt them in most.

Our pre-match call was Double Chance 1X (Saudi Arabia or Draw) at 1.42. It landed, though not quite in the manner the half-time score suggested it would.

The premise was that Uruguay, for all their reputation, were not a side to rely on to beat an organised opponent in an opening group fixture, and that a point was the likeliest outcome for Saudi Arabia. Both halves of that read were vindicated by the group as a whole: Uruguay did not win a match here, and Saudi Arabia's point in this game was one of the two they took. The bet was ahead at the break and settled level, which for a double chance is the same collection either way. Verdict: won