Club World Cup: A difficult American mission for Al-Ahly… and an Arab summit between Wydad and Al-Hilal

The first football team of the Egyptian club Al-Ahly is looking forward to advancing to the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco, when it will face the American team, Seattle Sounders, tomorrow in the second round of the tournament. Al-Ahly rose to face the American Seattle Sounders, the champions of the North, Central American and Caribbean Confederation (CONCACAF), after defeating New Zealand’s Auckland City 3-0 in the first round of the tournament.

Al-Ahly, who is playing his first official match against a club in the United States, hopes to overcome that obstacle in order to rise to the golden square and face Real Madrid, the European Champions League holder. After winning the bronze medal in 2006, 2020 and 2021, Al-Ahly dreams of going far in the Club World Cup and going up to the final match for the first time in its history, becoming the third Arab team to achieve this achievement after the Moroccan Raja Casablanca and the Emirati Al-Ain team in 2013 and 2018, respectively.

Al-Ahly has not lost in the second round of the tournament since 2013, as it rose twice to the championship after this date in 2020 and 2021, as it defeated Al-Duhail with a clean goal in the 2020 edition, then defeated Mexico’s Monterrey in 2021, and in the two versions, Al-Ahly won third place and the bronze medal.

After Al-Ahly’s strong performance against Auckland City and its 3-0 win, Swiss Marcel Koller, the team’s coach, demanded from his players the need to close that page completely and prepare to face Seattle Sounders in order to win and qualify for the Golden Square.

The task of Al-Ahly, who is participating in the tournament for the eighth time in its history, will not be easy to pass through to the semi-finals, especially since it faces an unknown team for it, so Kohler was keen to obtain records of previous matches of the competitor to study it and identify its strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, the Seattle Sounders team enters the match in search of winning and qualifying for the semi-finals of the tournament, in which it participates for the first time in its history.
This is the first time that an American team participates in the Club World Cup, after Los Angeles Galaxy failed to participate in the tournament in the 2001 edition, which was not held due to financial problems.
Seattle Sounders coach Brian Schmitzer has more than one player who can play in several positions, which makes it easier for him to change the way the team plays during the match, and move it from playing in a defensive manner to an offensive one, which may give him a great advantage against Al-Ahly. It is expected that the winner from Al-Ahly and Seattle Sounders will meet Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the tournament.
The same day will witness an Arab football summit, in which Moroccan Wydad, the African champion, will meet with Al Hilal Saudi Arabia, the Asian champion, in search of qualifying for the semi-finals and facing the Brazilian team, Flamengo.

Wydad seeks to repeat the achievement of the Moroccan national team, which ended the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, by reaching the semi-final round of the Club World Cup, to become the first Moroccan team to qualify for this role, since 2013 when Raja won second place. Wydad aims to achieve its first victory in the tournament in which it participated before, in 2017 when it lost its two matches against Pachuca 0/1 and against Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan 2/3.
Wydad coach Mahdi Al-Nafiti was able to develop his team’s defensive performance, as the team was able to keep a clean sheet in six consecutive matches, which made it second in the Moroccan League, two points behind FAR, the leaders. Tomorrow’s match will be the first match in which Wydad faces a Saudi team.

Al-Hilal will seek to win the match and qualify for the Golden Square, in an attempt to achieve a better position than the position it achieved last season, when it finished fourth. This is the third participation of Al-Hilal in the tournament, and the team did not lose in this role in its two previous participations, as it defeated Al-Jazira 6/1 in the last edition, after it had defeated Esperance de Tunis with a clean goal in the 2019 edition.

Although Al-Hilal is making strong performances in the Saudi Professional League, it lost 0-1 to Al-Fayhaa in its last match before the start of the Club World Cup. Therefore, Ramon Diaz, the coach of the team, was keen to talk to his players and demanded that they close the local page and focus on the Club World Cup in order to achieve the best possible results.