Ileana Sanchez
Dailysports's expert
One of the most interesting matches of the day will take place on Friday in Jeddah: Al-Ittihad will compete with Al-Ahli in the 9th round of the Saudi Pro League. The battle will start at 20:00 CET.
Al-Ittihad: the latest news
Speaking about the previous season, Al-Ittihad won the national championship for the first time since 2009, finishing ahead of Al-Nassr and Cristiano Ronaldo by 5 points, without a scattering of stars in the line-up. The new Pro League draw is still more difficult for the team: it shares the 2nd place with Al-Taawun after 8 rounds. At the same time, the advantage of the leading opponent, Al-Hilal, is minimal – only 1 point.
Moreover, “the Tigers” combine the inner championship with a new concern – the international tournaments. It is reasonable to mention that the match against the Iranian rival, Sepahan, in the AFC Champions League this week did not take place due to the political component: the hosts placed a bust of Qasem Soleimani, who is considered a war criminal in some countries, when appearing on the field. For this very reason, Al-Ittihad refused to play and went back to the airport before the start of the event. Therefore, Nuno Espirito Santo’s wards did not receive any additional playing load this week, although they spent time on the flight.
Al Ahli: the latest news
Al-Ahli worked seriously on the transfer market last summer: the team was replenished with Edouard Mendy, Kessie, Saint-Maximin, Firmino, Mahrez – all of them could now have played in the UEFA Champions League, but made their choice in favour of Saudi Arabia.
Such transfer work has not brought immediate results – “the Fortress of Trophies” is still far from winning the titles, occupying only the 6th place in the championship at the moment. Still, the density in the Pro League table is serious, so the gap from the leader is only 5 points: a winning streak for a month or a month and a half will help make up for this distance. Obviously, the club also needs to forget the word “defeat” (and Al-Ahli still has difficulties with the higher mentioned task: the wards of German specialist, Matthias Jaissle, won only 1 and lost 2 out of 4 previous games).
Interesting facts and the statistics of head-to-head matches
Al-Ahli’s victory in head-to-head matches is very rare. Taking into account 5 previous confrontations, this happened only once: “the Fortress of Trophies” won on the away field with a 2:1 score back in 2020. However, the advantage was already on the side of Al-Ittihad, which won three times and another match ended in a draw, in the next 4 games.
Prediction
Al-Ittihad is now in good shape. It failed to beat the modest opponent, Al Feiha, last weekend, but this can be explained by the preparation for the AFC Champions League. Still, Al-Ahli showed that it was difficult for them to play matches with direct competitors: it lost to Al-Nassr and Al-Fateh, and achieved only a draw in the battle against Al-Ittifaq. Therefore, there is very little faith that the guests will return home with the points.
