Usually, fans sing the name of their players when winning a title, but the name of the Algerian Amir Saoud will remain in the minds of Al Hilal fans after their team won the Saudi Professional League title on Monday.
It seemed that retaining the league title was out of reach for Al Hilal, given that it was 16 points behind Al Ittihad, but what happened on May 29 will be remembered in the tournament.
Al-Ittihad was three points ahead of Al-Hilal and needed ten points from the last four games to be crowned for the first time since 2009, after seasons of disappointing performance and relegation.
But the Algerian Saoud scored against Al-Ittihad in the 51st minute to give Al-Taei a 1-0 victory, and at the same time, Al-Hilal defeated Abha to take the lead by direct confrontation, and paved the way for an exciting end to the league.
And yesterday, Monday, Al Hilal won the title to turn a season that was almost catastrophic to crowning the league title, and before that the Asian Champions League title.
Al Hilal started the season well and scored ten points in the first four matches, and despite the decline in results in the second half of September, where they tied twice, the focus was on the Champions League.
After winning the Champions League at the expense of the Korean Pohang Steelers at the end of November, the fans expected that Al Hilal would return to focus on its favorite tournament.
*Disastrous period
But the period after the Champions League final until February 12 was disastrous and led to the departure of Portuguese Leonardo Jardim from coaching the team.
“We started the season with Asian participation, then the Club World Cup, and when we came back, we found Al-Ittihad superior to us by a large margin of points,” Al-Hilal player Mohammed Jahafli said.
In that period, Al Hilal lost 12 points, losing to Al Nasr and Al Fateh, and drew in three matches. It was satisfied with defeating Al Faisaly, Al Tai, and Al Taawon, while Al Ittihad took the lead by a wide margin.
The 4-0 defeat against Al-Ahly of Egypt in the match for third place in the Club World Cup ended the relationship with Jardim, and the Argentine Ramon Diaz, who led the team to the league title in 2017, returns to the league title in 2017.
It seemed that Al Hilal suddenly returned again, as it won in six consecutive matches, including the victory over the leaders Al Ittihad, and at the same time, the team qualified from its group in the new version of the Champions League easily after winning the first four matches.
* “Everything is over”
It seemed that the second place in the league would represent Al Hilal a good result in the disappointing domestic season after the 1-0 loss to Al Fayhaa on May 3, when the team became eight points behind Al Ittihad.
“After the Al-Fayhaa match, we felt that everything was over, but Al-Ittihad’s tie with Al-Fateh (on May 6) gave us hope,” said Al-Hilal goalkeeper Abdel Mayouf, when asked when he felt the dream of the title was lost.
But Al Hilal did not give up, as usual, and won two matches, and took advantage of Al Ittihad’s stumble in a draw with Al-Fateh.
The match against Al Ittihad on May 23 was enough to restore hope for the remainder of the season, as Al Hilal overturned its delay to win 3-1 thanks to Michel Delgado’s double and a goal from Salem Al Dosari to reduce the difference to three points.
And Al Hilal needed Al Ittihad to lose only three points in order to restore its title hopes, which happened when Algerian Saoud scored at the beginning of the second half to lead Al Taei to win 1-0.
At the same time, Al Hilal defeated Abha to advance to the top thanks to direct confrontations, as it defeated its rival back and forth.
The situation remained as it was after the victory of Al-Hilal over Al-Fateh and Al-Ittihad over the agreement.
In the last round, Al Hilal only had to defeat Al-Faisaly and not look at the result of Al-Ittihad in order to retain the title.
Al-Hilal advanced 2-0 before Al-Faisaly reduced the difference, and the hero withstood the intense pressure of his guest, who needed a draw to stay in the league.
Al-Hilal won 2-1, while Al-Ittihad stumbled again in a 0-0 draw with Al-Batin, so that “Al-Zaeem” won his fifth title in six years.