Saudi Arabia arrived in Miami as the side most expected to make up the numbers in Group H. For 79 minutes, they were making a liar of anyone who wrote them off. Abdulelah Al-Amri's first-half goal gave Georgios Donis's side a lead they defended with remarkable discipline, only for Maximiliano Araújo to level in the 80th minute and hand Uruguay the point their dominance had long demanded.
The numbers tell the story of the match in one direction: 65 per cent possession for Uruguay, 24 shots to Saudi Arabia's seven, nine on target to three, ten corners to four. By any statistical measure, Marcelo Bielsa's side were the superior team from the first whistle. What the numbers also tell you, quietly, is that Mohammed Al-Owais made eight saves. Without him, this would not have been a draw.
Al-Amri's goal arrived against the run of play. The Saudi defender, operating as part of a back four that spent much of the evening in its own half, found the net on 41 minutes to give his side a half-time lead their goalkeeper had done more to earn than their forwards. It was a genuine sucker-punch, the kind that Group Stage football specialises in producing, and it forced Bielsa's hand.
The Uruguayan response in the second half was persistent rather than frenzied. Valverde circulated the ball, Bentancur pressed with intelligence, and Mathías Olivera offered width and purpose down the left. Darwin Núñez, replaced at the break alongside Matías Viña in what appeared a tactical recalibration, had not made the impact Bielsa would have hoped for in the first half, and the double change gave Uruguay different options. Juan Sanabria and Agustín Canobbio both logged 49 minutes from the bench.
Still, Al-Owais kept the score at 1-0. The Saudi goalkeeper, who had conceded only twice in the expected goals model (Saudi Arabia's xG conceded stood at 1.48 against Uruguay's 1.48 for the match), was the reason the equaliser felt so long in coming. He turned, blocked, and positioned his way through the afternoon, and when the goal finally came it had nothing to do with his errors.
Araújo, who had drifted into increasingly dangerous positions as the game wore on, finished on 80 minutes to make it 1-1. It was the goal Uruguay had threatened so persistently that its arrival felt less like a relief and more like a formality. Saudi Arabia, who had defended with real organisation and no little bravery, could not quite hold on.
The draw leaves Group H finely balanced. Both sides take one point, joined by Spain and Cape Verde Islands, who played out a goalless stalemate elsewhere. All four teams are level. For Uruguay, this is two points dropped rather than one gained; their xG of 1.48 and their volume of chances suggest they should have been out of sight long before Araújo finally broke through. For Saudi Arabia, a point from a game in which they had 35 per cent of the ball and seven shots represents something to build on, even if the goal they conceded in the final ten minutes will sting.
Al-Owais was, without question, the figure of the match. Saudi Arabia's goalkeeper produced one of the more remarkable individual defensive performances the group stage will see, and on another day his eight saves would have secured three points for a side that had no right to be defending a lead so deep into the second half. Donis will know his team were fortune's companions for long stretches, but fortune, in tournament football, counts.