MIAMI, June 16 \u2014 Uruguay dominated but had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Saudi Arabia in the sweltering heat of Miami on Monday to leave an intriguing Group H wide open.<\/p>\n
The stalemate came hours after one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history when European champions Spain were held 0-0 by debutants Cape Verde in the same group.<\/p>\n
After the first round of games in the pool all four teams have one point.<\/p>\n
Defender Abdulelah al-Amri gave the Saudis a surprise lead near the end of the first half only for Uruguay\u2019s second-half pressure to pay off with 10 minutes left through Maxi Araujo.<\/p>\n
Uruguay, World Cup winners in 1930 and 1950, saw their arrival in the United States from Mexico delayed by a snag with the paperwork for their plane.<\/p>\n
Marcelo Bielsa\u2019s side though had the first chance of the game when Araujo stung the palms of Saudi goalkeeper Mohammed al-Owais after five minutes.<\/p>\n
In evening temperatures of more than 30C and energy-sapping humidity, both teams struggled to create much in front of goal early on.<\/p>\n
Just after the half-hour mark the Saudi stopper was called into action again to parry away a diving header from close range by Federico Vinas.<\/p>\n
The Saudis, who stunned eventual champions Argentina 2-1 to start their campaign at the Qatar 2022 World Cup, looked to hit their opponents on the break.<\/p>\n
They had their first real opportunity shortly before half-time when Amri forced Fernando Muslera to palm away his fizzing shot.<\/p>\n
Four minutes before the break the defender did score, reacting fastest to poke home from close range after Muslera spilled a header from a corner.<\/p>\n
After a toothless first period, Bielsa had seen enough, dragging off defender Matias Vina and anonymous former Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez.<\/p>\n
Winger Agustin Canobbio and left-sided Juan Manuel Sanabria were introduced.<\/p>\n
The double substitution sparked Uruguay \u2014 who surprisingly did not play a single World Cup warm-up game \u2014 into action in the second half.<\/p>\n
Saudi coach Georgios Donis, brought in just two months before the tournament, saw his team retreat farther and farther back.<\/p>\n
On the hour Manchester United midfielder Manuel Ugarte pinged the ball against the foot of the Saudi post from well outside the box.<\/p>\n
The pressure finally told late on when Owais made a mess of a routine stop and Araujo gobbled up the rebound.<\/p>\n
There looked to be only one winner after that, but Saudi Arabia just about held on for a vital point. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, June 16 \u2014 Uruguay dominated but had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Saudi Arabia in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[128930,128931,123,125,124,13228,24605,24215],"class_list":["post-308961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-marcelo-bielsa","tag-maxi-araujo","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-uruguay","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}