Al-Wasl will face a heavy-caliber confrontation when it meets Al-Ahly Saudi Arabia in the second round of the AFC Champions League matches for the elite, at eight in the evening today, at Al-Wasl Stadium in Zabeel, as the “Emperor” seeks to achieve the “full mark” in his continental career.
Al-Wasl enters the match with three points after its victory in the first round away from home over Pakhtakor of Uzbekistan with an unanswered goal in Tashkent, which is the same score that Saudi Al-Ahly has after it beat Persepolis with the same score in Jeddah.
Al-Wasl hopes to benefit from playing the match at its home stadium and in front of its fans, to outperform the visiting team, which is armed with a number of international stars, most notably the Ivorian Franck Kessiet, the Algerian Riyad Mahrez, the Brazilian Roberto Firmino and the Englishman Ivan Toney.
The circumstances of the two teams are similar before the match, as Al-Wasl suffered its first loss in the ADNOC Professional League, by being defeated by Al-Ain in the fourth round by four goals to two at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium, while Al-Ahly Saudi Arabia lost outside its stadium to Al-Qadisiyah with an unanswered goal in the Saudi Roshan League, after it had been It bid farewell to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Cup in a resounding surprise against Al-Jandal, which plays in the First Division League, with two goals to one.
Al-Wasl is seeking to get a morale boost in the process of qualifying for the second round, as in the next two rounds, the third and fourth, it will play two Qatari matches, as it will play against Al-Gharafa in Doha, then host Al-Sadd in Zabeel.
Al-Waslawiyah hopes that their team will benefit from the fluctuation in the results of Al-Ahly Saudi Arabia, and the club’s management approaching the dismissal of German coach Matthias Jaisse, in addition to the decline in the performance of many players, most notably the Algerian star Riyad Mahrez.
Al-Wasl’s training sessions that followed the team’s match against Al-Ain last Thursday in the league witnessed the focus of the technical staff, led by Serbian coach Milos Milović, on correcting the mistakes committed by the players against Al-Zaeem, which contributed to the team scoring four goals.
This is the first time that Al-Wasl will meet Al-Ahly Saudi Arabia in the AFC Champions League, while it is the third confrontation between the two teams, after they played in the round of 16 of the Zayed Cup for Champions Clubs 2019, where the first leg in Zabeel ended in a draw between the two teams with two goals each, and two goals were scored. Al-Wasl Abdullah Jassim and Caio Canedo, and the goals of Al-Ahly Saudi Arabia were scored by Nicolae Stanciu and Daganini Tavares, while Al-Ahly won the return match in Jeddah by two goals to one, after Ali Saleh took the lead for Al-Wasl in the first half, before the home side scored two goals in the second half through Paulo Diaz and Salman. Al-Masry, to qualify for the quarter-finals.
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