https://arab.news/g2a7h
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s national football team have arrived in Tajikistan for their 2026 World Cup and 2027 Asian Cup second-stage qualifying game on Tuesday.
The Green Falcons’ players and staff were met at Dushanbe International Airport by the Kingdom’s ambassador Waleed Al-Reshaidan, and the Tajikistan Football Federation’s Secretary-General Furkatzhon Akhmedzhanov.
Saudi Arabian Football Federation President Yasser Al-Misehal thanked the officials for the warm welcome.
RIYADH: The Saudi Pro League has expanded its agreement with Stats Perform to ensure every top-flight Saudi football club, as well as the league’s own media and digital teams, benefit from new tools and performance insights.
The extended deal includes OptaAI-powered Opta Vision, Stats Perform’s richest performance data, captured from every Saudi Pro League, King’s Cup and Super Cup fixture played throughout the season.
The data will be available to each club’s performance analysis department, enhancing on-field analysis and further deepening fan and sponsor engagement.
Saudi Pro League CEO Omar Mugharbel said: “The Saudi Pro League has established itself as a leading force in football across Asia, recognized as the top AFC domestic competition.
“Aided by strategic partnerships, including our collaboration with Stats Perform, we harness innovative data solutions like live Opta feeds and artificial intelligence-powered Opta Vision data to enhance club performance analysis and scouting. This commitment to excellence drives our clubs’ competitive edge and enriches fans, ensuring the SPL continues to set new standards with its partners in delivering unforgettable football experiences to a global audience.”
Opta Vision combines complete player tracking, on-ball event and aggregated fitness data alongside multiple AI-enriched predictive metrics, enabling analysts to quickly identify new and pioneering performance traits at a player and team level.
Data from dozens of overseas competitions will also be made available to recruitment analysts working for Saudi Pro League clubs to improve their data profiling when scouting players. Each SPL club will also have access to their own internal Opta Pro Hub software where they can manage all scouting activity, including player reports and recruitment shortlists.
Fan engagement will be boosted with Opta feeds offering a wider range of experiences, both pre-match and in-game. These include the stats hub on the official Saudi Pro League website and app, the official RSL Fantasy game and the syndicated world broadcast feed.
Live Opta data feeds will also be available to the Saudi Arabia Football Federation, official league partners and media departments at every Saudi Pro League club.
Stats Perform’s chief revenue officer, Steve Xeller, said: “We are delighted that the Saudi Pro League are the latest to expand their use of our services to include OptaAI-powered solutions. Our people, including our dedicated team in the region, will continue to work tirelessly to help ensure the SPL and its clubs continue to go from strength-to-strength, on the field and off it, for the benefit of their growing audience of millions of global fans.”
RIYADH: A last-minute penalty gave Al-Sadd a 2-1 win over Al-Nassr to end the unbeaten record of the Saudi Arabian club in the AFC Champions League Elite.
The one positive, on a night when the Yellows did not impress against the Qataris, is that they had already secured a place in the round of 16 and are still in third.
In the absence of the rested Cristiano Ronaldo, who was watching from the sidelines, Talisca did his best to step up early on. The Brazilian fired an early shot wide and came closer after 17 minutes when he hit a post. He should have scored from close range as he was found by a smart Sadio Mane pass but while Meshaal Barsham was beaten, Talisca’s shot came back off the woodwork.
That near miss came just after Al-Sadd should have taken the lead. Marcelo Brozovic played a blind pass across the face of the penalty area and right into the path of Cristo Gonzalez. The Spaniard was completely unmarked on the edge of the area but his low shot was saved by Bento.
Mane should have broken the deadlock in the 24th minute. The former Liverpool and Bayern Munich forward got on the end of a Sultan Al-Ghannam cross that was swinging into the area from the right, but his diving header at the far post went just wide. So too did a low Angelo shot from outside the box that had Barsham scrambling to get down.
Eight minutes after the restart, Al-Sadd took the lead. Akram Afif ran onto a through pass from Gonzalez, outpaced Mohammed Al-Fatil and then, from just inside the area, calmly rolled the ball past the diving Bento and into the far corner.
Al-Nassr came back at the hosts with Aymeric Laporte and Wesley having attempts on goal, and with 19 minutes remaining Mane went even closer by hitting the post.
Then, with 10 minutes left, Al-Nassr got back on level terms. It may have been an own goal but much of the credit must go to Wesley who got to the left byline to fire over a low cross that was turned in from close range by Romain Saiss.
But Al-Sadd then won it. Adam Ounas stroked home from the penalty spot in the 99th minute after Al-Fatil had brought down Afif. It sent the Qatari club into the round of 16.
Earlier in the day, two penalties from Ivan Toney gave group leaders Al-Ahli a 2-2 draw at home to Esteghlal as Pitso Mosimane returned to Jeddah after being dismissed in 2023, and became the first coach to take some reward from his former club in the tournament.
Twice Al-Ahli had to come back from behind. The Iranians took the lead three minutes before the break, Raphael Silva volleying home past Edouard Mendy after a free-kick was floated into the area by Jaloliddin Masharipov.
At the end of the half Riyad Mahrez hit the bar, but there was still time before the interval for Al-Ahli to draw level. Didier Ndong brought down Fahad Al-Rashidi and Toney stepped up to make no mistake.
Mohammad Hossein Eslami put the Tehran giants back in front seven minutes into the second half with a spectacular volley from the edge of the area.
But Esteghlal’s hopes for a famous win were dealt a blow nine minutes from time when Eslami received a red card.
Toney scored from the spot again with four minutes remaining, his fourth in the space of a week, and Al-Ahli thought they had won it in added time when Firas Al-Buraikan netted but it was ruled out by VAR. The Greens, though, stay top of the group.
Al-Ittihad players Steven Bergwijn and Abdulelah Hawsawi will undergo medical examinations on their respective injuries on Sunday.
The Jeddah-based club stated through its official account on social media platform X that Dutch forward Bergwijn and Saudi midfielder Hawsawi will undergo tests to ensure their fitness, without disclosing further details about their injuries.
Hawsawi sustained an injury in the 46th minute of the match against Al-Ettifaq on Saturday, during the 12th round of the Saudi Pro League.
It forced the team’s coach, Laurent Blanc, into a substitution, bringing on Abdulrahman Al-Aboud in his place.
Bergwijn also suffered a knock in the 85th minute, and was replaced by Ahmed Al-Ghamdi.
The Dutchman’s injury came 15 minutes after he scored his team’s final goal in the 4-0 victory over Al-Ettifaq.
Al-Ittihad, currently leading the league with 33 points, next face a challenging clash with Al-Nassr, in third with 25 points, next Friday at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah.
AUSTRALIA: The recent surge in investment in the Saudi Pro League has, on the whole, been a positive thing for Asian football, with more eyeballs and interest in not only one of Asia’s flagship domestic leagues, but also in their showpiece continental tournaments.
Having the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Riyad Mahrez grace the fields of Asia’s premier club competition certainly gives it more international credibility and visibility.
Wherever Ronaldo goes with Al-Nassr, the crowds follow. There were unbelievable scenes in Iran last year when the Riyadh giants traveled to play Persepolis, while just this week more than 37,000 filled the cavernous Al-Bayt Stadium in Qatar to watch Al-Nassr edge local side Al-Gharafa.
Before the Ronaldo show rolled into town, Al-Gharafa had averaged a little over 4,000 spectators to their three other games this season.
Last season, meanwhile, Indian champions Mumbai City had to move their game with Al-Hilal to a bigger stadium, such was the rush for tickets for the arrival of Neymar; and although his ACL injury a few weeks prior quelled that excitement, more than 30,000 turned up.
The Saudi clubs are now box office wherever they go, and add a level of prestige to the competition that it has long needed.
The AFC Champions League has always maintained a level of prestige among Saudi clubs and fans, so it is no surprise that they have contested the final over the two decades since its initial reformatting in 2002.
Al-Ittihad won back-to-back titles in 2004 and 2005, while finishing as runners-up in 2009. Their Jeddah rivals Al-Ahli also fell one win short in 2012, losing the final in South Korea to Ulsan Hyundai, while Al-Hilal made it a hat-trick of defeats when they suffered a shock loss to Australia’s Western Sydney Wanderers in 2014.
Since then, the giants from Riyadh have made it their mission to dominate the continental scene, with a further four appearances in the final for a record of two wins and two losses while appearing in three of the last five finals.
All of that is to say Saudi clubs have a long and proud history in the AFC Champions League — which has now been rebranded as the AFC Champions League Elite — long before the record investment into the league over the past 18 months.
But what many feared, particularly on the eastern side of the continent, was that the scale of the investment would make the AFC Champions League Elite a plaything for Saudi clubs, with the other 21 clubs unable to compete or match the levels of investment and the quality of players at their disposal.
Al-Ain did a good job of upsetting the apple cart last year with wins over Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal in the quarterfinal and semifinal respectively, on their march to claiming a second continental title.
That may ultimately prove to be the exception rather than the norm, however.
A look at this year’s AFC Champions League Elite, the first tournament being staged with the new format of just 24 teams and an eight-game league stage format — similar to that of the UEFA Champions League — suggests that maybe the dam is about to burst when it comes to the dominance of Saudi clubs.
With three games still to play in the league stage, all three Saudi clubs — Al Hilal, Al Ahli and Al Nassr — are safely through to the round of 16.
Their combined record stands at 15 games played, 13 games won, two games drawn and zero losses. They have scored 41 goals and conceded just 13.
The group stage is not yet completed and already it is hard to look past one of the trio for the title, especially when you consider they will have the considerable home ground advantage in the knockout stages after the controversial decision by the AFC to stage the knockout rounds (from the quarterfinals onward) in a central location, with Saudi Arabia awarded the hosting rights for the foreseeable future.
One has to factor in the randomness of the knockout stage draws that could see Saudi clubs drawn together, and therefore taking each other out before getting to the pointy end. But with the AFC also doing away with the east-west split from the quarterfinals onward, there is also the possibility of all three making the semifinals, or even an all-Saudi final.
For Scott McIntyre, who has been reporting on Asian football for more than two decades, the writing is already on the wall for clubs in the east.
“I don’t think anyone from the east can challenge any of the Saudi clubs,” the Japan-based McIntyre recently said on “The Asian Game Podcast,” adding: “The game has shifted so far to the west that as long as things stay as they’re now and the spending is unrestricted in the west, and it’s not in the east, unless there’s a change in format I just can’t see anyone from the east challenging.
“For me (the tide) has shifted remarkably, and you just can’t compete with the financial powers that the west has. That’s the reality we’re living in.”
Based on the first five rounds this season, the era of Saudi domination appears to be here — and here to stay.
RIYADH: Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice on Friday to give Al-Nassr a vital 2-0 win over Damac that keeps the Riyadh hosts in the title race.
It was far from a vintage performance by the Riyadh club but they move on to 25 points from 12 games, three behind Al-Hilal and five behind Al-Ittihad, with the top two teams in action on Saturday.
Ronaldo went closest early on, heading over from a good position but had an even better one after 16 minutes as Al-Nassr were awarded a penalty following a handball in the area from Abdelkader Bedrane.
Ronaldo stuttered and delayed his run-up before drilling a low shot into the bottom-left corner beyond the diving Amin Al-Bukhari to show his famous “Siu” celebration for the 57th time in 58 league games for the Yellows.
Al-Nassr should have extended their lead on numerous occasions. Angelo rolled two shots just wide of the post while Sadio Mane had a close-range effort saved by Al-Bukhari after being put through on goal by a Ronaldo backheel in the area.
At the break, Nassr coach Stefano Pioli would have been frustrated by his team not getting a second, and after play resumed, the Italian would have been unhappy at his time looking sloppy at the back. More than once Bento had to save the team from defensive laxness.
Some of the pressure was removed after 55 minutes as Damac were reduced to ten men. The unfortunate Bedrane saw red for a dangerous challenge on Mohamed Simakan.
The visitors still managed to cause problems for the star-studded hosts but Ronaldo sealed the win with 10 minutes remaining. Nawaf Boushal got to the byline on the left and provided the five-time Ballon D’Or winner with the perfect pullback and the Portuguese star did the rest, firing a left-footed shot powerfully home. It was his ninth league goal of the season so far.
Al-Qadsia stay fourth behind Al-Nassr on goal difference with a 1-0 win at home to Al-Khaleej, a fifth league victory in succession for the newly promoted team.
