Riyadh: Qatar’s Al Rayyan and Al Hilal SFC of Saudi Arabia are braced for a thriller when they meet in Group A of the AFC Champions League (ACL) 2022 at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium, today.
Both teams picked up three points on Matchday One and a win today will be a positive step in their hopes of gaining an early advantage.
This will be the seventh meeting between the clubs with Al Hilal winning four of those games to Al Rayyan’s one victory which came in 2018.
Al Rayyan fell behind early in their Matchday One fixture against Istiklol after Shakhrom Suleymanov’s sixth minute strike, but fought back through goals from Yacine Brahimi and Yohan Boli, only for Muhammad Isaev to draw the Tajikistan side level. Al Rayyan, however, claimed the win thanks to Boli’s 71st minute effort.
Head coach Nicolas Cordova wants Al Rayyan to continue playing with the same mentality that saw them overcome a plucky Istiklol on Matchday One.
“Our recovery from Matchday One has been good,” said Cordova. “We will be facing a tough team tomorrow (Monday) and we have to be ready for that. We’ve had a good first match and the players have been showing good commitment during training. We are facing a really strong team in Al Hilal but we’re confident that we can produce a good result.”
"We will have to adapt to different scenarios and maybe play more compact football. The coach will decide on the best scenario for the team.”
Defending champions Al Hilal opened their campaign with a 2-1 victory over UAE Sharjah. Saleh Al Sheri’s penalty was cancelled out by Sharjah’s Otabek Shukurov but the Saudi Arabia side sealed the win in the 62nd minute through Brazilian Micheal’s strike.
Al Hilal will be without the services of Al Sheri and Jang Hyun-soo, who both picked up injuries, for the game against Al Rayyan but Ramon Diaz is confident his team will adapt to get the win today.
“We don’t have much time to recover for the next match, however, the mood in the squad is good and we have prepared the team well after winning our first match,” said Diaz.
