Saudi Arabia's World Cup hopes hinge on a near-impossible task against Australia

A Saudi squad that has scored six goals through nine qualifying games needs to beat Australia by a five-goal margin to earn a direct spot at the 2026 World Cup.

Head coach Herve Renard knows it's an extremely unlikely outcome for his Saudi team, but he's urging his players to go all in Tuesday in the last game of the third round of Asian qualifying for next year's global tournament.

“The door is closed but we have to try to qualify even if it is through the window,” Renard said after his team's 2-0 win over Bahrain last week kept Saudi Arabia in contention. “Everything must go very well for us if we are to qualify; we have to score goals.”

Anything less than a five-goal deficit means Australia — in second spot in Group C — qualifies for a seventh World Cup. The last time the Socceroos lost by such a margin was in successive 6-0 defeats against Brazil and France in 2013. The Australians have scored 14 goals and conceded six through nine qualifiers.

After successive World Cup qualifications through the playoffs, Australia is close to securing a direct route but coach Tony Popovic is taking nothing for granted.

“We need to do a job in Saudi,” Popovic said. “We're in a great position, but we need to finish it off.”

Popovic has only been in the job since September, stepping in after Graham Arnold resigned after collecting just one point in the group’s first two qualification games.

“It’s been a really intense period since I’ve come in but everyone’s embraced what we’re aiming to do,” he said. “And we’re very close now to achieving our goal.”

Asia has been allocated eight places at the 48-team World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The top two teams in each of the three groups in this round advance directly. The third- and fourth-place teams in each group go into another round vying for two more places.

Japan was the first to qualify and will top Group C regardless of the outcome between Australia and third-place Saudi Arabia. Iran and Uzbekistan have qualified from Group A, and South Korea and Jordan have qualified from Group B.

If Saudi Arabia fails to win by five, it will join United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia and Iraq in the next stage of qualifying in October. Oman, meanwhile, is fourth in Group B, a point ahead of the Palestinian team in fifth place, with the two teams meeting in Amman on Tuesday.

“We still have everything to play for and we know what we have to do and that is to take all three points and continue our journey,” Palestinian coach Ihab Abujazar said.

For China, Kuwait, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain, the run to 2026 is already over.

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Indonesia's players and team officials celebrate their victory over China during the World Cup 2026 group C Asia qualifying soccer match between Indonesia and China at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

Australia's Aziz Behich, left, celebrates after scoring against Japan during their World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match in Perth, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)

Australia's Aziz Behich, left, scores against Japan's goalkeeper Kosei Tani, right, during their World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match in Perth, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)

Australia's Cameron Burgess, right, and Aziz Behich celebrate after defeating Japan in their World Cup 2026 group C qualifying soccer match in Perth, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A former Polish justice minister who faces prosecution in his homeland over alleged abuse of power said Monday that he has been granted asylum in Hungary.

Zbigniew Ziobro was a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023. That administration established political control over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to far-away locations.

Current Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government came to power more than two years ago with ambitions to roll back the changes, but efforts to undo them have been blocked by two successive presidents aligned with the national right.

In October, prosecutors requested the lifting of Ziobro's parliamentary immunity to press charges against him. They allege among other things that Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.

Tusk’s party says Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.

Hungary, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has hosted several politicians close to Law and Justice while Polish authorities were seeking them.

In a lengthy post on X Monday, Ziobro wrote that he had “decided to accept the asylum granted to me by the government of Hungary due to the political persecution in Poland.”

“I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he said. “I believe that instead of acquiescing to being silenced and subjected to a torrent of lies — which I would have no opportunity to refute — I can do more by fighting the mounting lawlessness in Poland.”

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday that Hungarian authorities have granted asylum to “several” individuals who would face political persecution in Poland, according to his ministry. He declined to specify their names.

In an English-language post on X, Tusk wrote that “the former Minister of Justice(!), Mr. Ziobro, who was the mastermind of the political corruption system, has asked the government of Victor Orbán for political asylum.”

“A logical choice,” he added.

FILE - The leader of the Polish junior coalition partners Zbigniew Ziobro, speaks to reporters alongside in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)