Roberto Mancini warned Saudi Arabia against falling victim to the kind of Asian Cup shock suffered by favourites Japan when his side face Kyrgyzstan on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia fought back to beat Oman 2-1 in stoppage time in their opening match in Qatar and can seal their place in the knockout rounds.

Mancini's team are ranked 56th in the world and are one of the contenders for the title. Kyrgyzstan are 98th and lost 2-0 to Thailand to start their Asian Cup.

But a strongly-fancied Japan fell 2-1 to lower-ranked Iraq on Friday and the Italian coach Mancini said that should serve as a warning.

"Kyrgyzstan are a very good team. You know what happened yesterday with Japan against Iraq -- nobody thought Iraq can beat Japan," he said on Saturday.

Read full story on sport.timesofmalta.com

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