After Saudi Arabia’s glorious campaign at the 1994 FIFA World Cup™, few would have believed that anyone from the “Sons of the Desert” would emulate that success. However, Yasser Al Qahtani has turned heads, changed the opinions of many and convinced pundits that the skills of Saudi Arabian footballers should never go unnoticed.
Many successful strikers in Saudi Arabian football, such as Majed Abdullah, Fahad Al Harifi, Saeed Owairan and Sami Al Jabcr have made their mark on their generations with several achievements and Al Hilal striker Yasser Al Qahtani is no exception, having been recently crowned the best footballer in Asia.
Al Qahtani was the fourth player from the kingdom to win the prestigious honour but only the second striker after Owairan, who became the inaugural Saudi player to win the accolade in 1994.
At the young age of 25, Al Qahtani became the captain of the Saudi Arabia national team and he will be hoping to achieve mote in the coming years with both Al Hilal and the Green Falcons.
As a striker, Al Qahtani provides a constant threat to opposing defence and is well known for his decisive goals, which have earned him the title of ”The Sniper”.
After each goal, the prolific striker celebrates with a trademark move which consists of going down on one knee, reaching for an imaginary arrow from his back and firing it with a restive flourish.
“The first time I did the sniper move was against Kuwait in the 2004 Gulf Cup,” AJ Qahcani recalls. “I did it unintentionally after snatching the ball between a defender and the goalkeeper and from then on I continued doing it after scoring each goal.” After that move, Saudi football fans gave Al Qahtani several nicknames including “The Sniper”, “Robin Hood” and “The Mighty Yasser”.

His full name may be Julio Cesar Dely Valdes, but back home in Panama he is simply known as “Panagol” or “El Canalero”. Every child in Panama knows him. He is, after all, the best and most famous footballer that this small Central American country has ever
produced. As if that were not enough, the Panamanians also voted him the country’s sportsman of the 20-th century. Dely Valdes, whose brothers Jorge and Armando were also professional footballers, began his career in his hometown of Colon. In 1989, at the age of 22, he left Atletico Colon for pastures new and joined Argentinian fourth-division outfit Deportivo Paraguayo, for whom he would score 28 goals in 33 matches, which was enough to secure a move to Uruguayan giants Nacional. It was on the banks of the River Plate that Dely Valdes truly became a star and a crowd favourite, scoring more than 100 goals and leading Nacional to the Uruguayan league title in 1992. By now, clubs in Europe had started to sit up and take notice of him and Cagliari moved to sign the powerful striker. After Italy, he moved on to France (Paris Saint-Germain, where he won the European Cup Winners’ Cup) and then to Spain (Real Oviedo, Malaga) before returning to Nacional and finally to Arabe Unido in Panama, where he brought the curtains down on his career some three years ago.
Although he was unable to qualify for a FIFA competition as a player, he has already done so as a coach. Dely Valdes, who is now 41, coaches the Panama U-17 and U-20 teams with his twin brother Jorge, and together they led the latter to last year’s FIFA U-20 World Cup in Canada.

Like Baloy, Guimaraes is also convinced that Panama can make history b\ reaching their first FIFA World Cup finals. “I came here with the goal of taking Panama to South Africa,” he says. “What I have seen so far has made me even more confident that we can do it.” Baloy, meanwhile, believes chat the secret to qualifying may all be in the mind: “If we players really believe in ourselves, we can definitely qualify.”
Panama will have an early test of their World Cup credentials because they have been drawn to play the winner of the F.I Salvador v. Anguilla tie in the second round in June. While Panama are fully expecting to meet El Salvador, a ream that reached the 1982 FIFA World Cup finals, no Panamanian expects the team that has made the most progress in the CONCACAF zone in recent years to be knocked off the road to South Africa at such an early stage. They firmly believe that the national team is far too solid and far too well balanced, both physically and technically, for that. Even President Martin Torrijos is a staunch supporter ot a team that has been built around goalkeeper Jaime Penedo (Municipal, Guatemala), striker Bias Perez (Hercules, Spain), Jorge “El Pistolero” Garces (CSKA Sofia, Bulgaria) and Baloy. Torrijos is a keen football fan and names his favourite team as Real Madrid. During a recent visit to the Spanish capital, where he also met Real Madrid President Ramon Calderon, Torrijos even successfully persuaded him to bring his star players to Panama City for the opening of the new Rommel Fernandez stadium later this year.
Yet more proof that Panamanian football is now Heine, taken seriously.