Tribune News Network
Doha
Al Rayyan went down fighting to Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia 3-1 in a highly entertaining clash of the 2024-2025 AFC Champions League Elite at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium of Al Rayyan club on Tuesday.
Goals late in the first half for Joao Concelo and Marcos Leonardo effectively confirmed the win for the four-time continental champions after Sergej Milinkovic-Savic had put the visitors in front in the 15th minute.
A Roger Guedes goal early in the second half gave Al Rayyan hope and Al Hilal failed to kill off the game with Aleksandar Mitrovic seeing a late penalty saved and Malcom hitting the post as home goalkeeper Paulo Victor kept the Saudis at bay.
There was plenty of goal-mouth action, hits and misses including a fabulous penalty save by Al Rayyan goalkeeper Paulo Victor that kept the large number of fans enthralled.
After keeping Al Hilal at bay at the start, Al Rayyan suffered a reversal much against the run of play as Milinkovic-Savic burst into the penalty area to meet midfielder Malcom’s in-swinging cross from the right and power his header home.
Al Rayyan retaliated with an attack and in the 19th minute a superb header by David Garcia was kept out by a rising Al Hilal goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, his fingertips pushing the ball over the goal.
Mahmoud Trezeguet then came agonisingly close to equalizing for Al Rayyan as his blistering shot from the corner of the penalty area deflected narrowly wide.
With three minutes left in the half, Al Hilal doubled their lead as Cancelo sent in a low first-time shot past Victor after Malcom had slid the ball into the Portuguese right back’s path.
Two minutes later, the former Manchester City man turned provider and Leonardo made it 3-0 applying the finishing touch at close range as Cancelo slid a pin-point pass through to the edge of the six-yard box.
A determined Al Rayyan came back recharged post break and immediately broke through the rival defence as Guedes combined with Achraf Bencharki on a fast move and the latter delivered a low cross for Guedes to boot in the ball on a volley (1-3) which sent home fans up in delight.
The thrilling action continued and in the 52nd minute Al Hilala’s Leonardo dragged a shot across the face of the target while rival keeper Bounou staved off Al Rayyan’s attempt, moving to his right to block an Abdelaziz Hatem’s goal-bound strike.
After more tussles, a goal-mouth action saw Al Hilal being awarded a penalty when Mitrovic’s header hit Julien de Sart’s right arm but goalkeeper Paulo Victor pushed away the Serbian striker’s 71st minute spot-kick as he dived to his left, keeping Al Rayyan’s hopes alive.
While Al Rayyan kept up their hunt, Al Hilal continued to go close to a fourth with Milinkovic-Savic heading over the target and Malcom hitting the post before Al Dawsari’s shot was saved by Victor.
Al Rayyan’s commitment once again came to the fore in the dying moments of 9 minutes of stoppage time as substitute Tameem Mansour sent in a diagonal kick towards an empty goal with the goalkeeper charged ahead but the ball just went wide past the right post.
Speaking to the media soon after the match, Al Rayyan coach Poya Esbaghi said he was proud of his team’s fight. "We are happy and proud of the performance shown by the team, but at the same time we are disappointed as a result of the loss. We will try to build on this performance in our next match of the tournament.”
Al Rayyan will next meet Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr in away game on September 30th.
The Champions League Elite is a new format that splits 24 teams evenly into two groups of East and West. Each team will play eight different opponents in the group stage.
The top eight teams from each zone will play in the last 16 over two legs in March, before the action moves to the final stages in Saudi Arabia from April 25 to May 4.