Preview: Serbia vs Saudi Arabia - prediction, team news, lineups

Serbia will welcome Saudi Arabia to the TSC Arena in Backa Topola for Tuesday's international friendly.

The two nations will both be looking to bounce back from heavy defeats in their first outings of the March international window. 

Match preview

After featuring at four of the last five World Cup finals, Serbia will have to wait at least four years to make their next appearance in football's biggest tournament. 

That is because they fell short in last year's qualifying campaign, finishing in third place in Group K after winning four, drawing one and losing three of their eight qualifiers.

Their 13-point tally left them 11 points adrift of group winners England and just a point away from Albania, who advanced to the playoff stage.

Veljko Paunovic bore little responsibility for his nation's qualifying failure, given the fact that he took over the reins ahead of the final two matches, which resulted in a 2-0 defeat to England and a 2-1 win over Latvia.

Serbia started their 2026 schedule with a heavy 3-0 defeat to European champions Spain at the Estadio de la Cerámica - six months after Paunovic's Real Oviedo side lost 2-0 to Villarreal at the same venue.

The 48-year-old, who was sacked by Oviedo in October, will take his national side back home for their first-ever game against Saudi Arabia, with the hosts targeting back-to-back wins on home soil.

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In contrast to their opponents, Saudi Arabia will be one of the 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA.

After progressing through the second round of qualifying, Saudi Arabia missed out on automatic qualification in the third stage, finishing behind Japan and Australia with 13 points from 10 matches.

As a result, they had to come through a mini round-robin tournament in October, which saw them beat Indonesia and draw with Iraq to pip the latter to top spot on goals scored.

The first-place finish sealed Saudi Arabia's place in a third consecutive World Cup, where they will face two-time winners Uruguay, 2010 champions Spain and tournament debutants Cape Verde.

While they may be in a tricky group, the Green Falcons will head to North America with hopes of reaching the knockout rounds for the first time since the 1994 tournament.

However, they will need to avoid results and performances like Friday's forgettable 4-0 defeat to Egypt if they are to achieve that objective.

Serbia form (all competitions):

Saudi Arabia form (all competitions):

Team News

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Paunovic could make several changes to his Serbia side in a bid to share out the minutes across the two March friendlies.

Predrag Rajkovic, Strahinja Erakovic, Stefan Bukinac and Kosta Nedeljkovic are in contention to start Tuesday's fixture.

There could also be starting spots for Fulham's Sasa Lukic, Atalanta's Lazar Samardzic and AEK Athens' Luka Jovic. 

As for the visitors, they are unable to call upon Moteb Al-Harbi due to injury, while Ali Lajami and Hassan Kadesh have been omitted from the travelling party for the trip to Serbia.

Renard has opted to call up goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais following Friday's heavy defeat to Egypt.

Rayan Hamed, Muteb Al-Mufarrij, Naif Masoud, Marwan Al-Sahafi and Abdullah Al-Hamdan could all come into Renard's thinking for Tuesday's fixture.

Serbia possible starting lineup:

Rajkovic; Nedeljkovic, Milenkovic, Erakovic, Bukinac; Gudelj, Lukic; Birmancevic, Samardzic, Kostic; Jovic

Saudi Arabia possible starting lineup:

Al-Aqidi; Abdulhamid, Hamed, Al-Amri, Al-Mufarrij; Kanno, Masoud; Al-Faraj, Al-Hamdan, Al-Sahafi; Al-Buraikan

We say: Serbia 2-1 Saudi Arabia

While both teams may have suffered heavy defeats on Friday, Serbia's loss took place against a much tougher team, and we think they will quickly pick themselves up from their disappointing result against Spain to return to winning ways in Tuesday's home fixture. 

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.