Al Hilal extend lead at the top after emphatic Clasico win

Al Hilal increased their lead at the summit of the Roshn Saudi League to nine points after an emphatic 3-1 comeback victory over rivals Al Ittihad in the Saudi Clasico at Kingdom Arena on Friday.

Al Nassr’s 4-4 draw at home with Al Hazem 24 hours earlier means the margin at the top has grown to nine points with 12 matches left in the RSL season.

Ahead of kick-off in the Friday evening fixture, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) unveiled its bid campaign to host the FIFA World Cup™ 2034 under the slogan Growing. Together.

Young aspiring footballers, both male and female, from the SAFF Regional Training Centres, built in 2021 to develop and nurture talents between the ages of 6 and 17, marched into the pitch alongside the Al Hilal and Al Ittihad players. They wore shirts branded with the Saudi 2034 bid logo, which was revealed alongside the bid website and short bid film that celebrates the passion, spirit and diversity of football in Saudi Arabia.

In front of 17,210 fans in the capital, it was the Al Ittihad who struck first after only 12 minutes, when French midfielder N’Golo Kante produced a flying header at the far post to head home Zakaria Hawsawi’s cross from the left.

With the initial foray of Al Ittihad attacks subsiding, Al Hilal took control and were able to restore parity six minutes before the break. Saudi international Saleh Al Shehri showed a poacher’s instinct to pounce on a loose ball inside the box after Ruben Neves’ shot from the edge of the area was blocked but fell to the striker.

Deputising for the suspended Aleksandar Mitrovic, Al Shehri made no mistake to draw the home side level.

Al Hilal picked up where they left off after the restart, with Sergej Milinkovic-Savic producing a moment of individual brilliance to take the ball past Kante, exchange a one-two with Salem Al Dawsari and advance past Ahmed Hegazi. The Serbian then chipped a cross from the left for Malcom, with the Brazilian matching Kante’s opener with a carbon-copy diving header to make it 2-1 before the hour mark.

The victory was rubber-stamped in the 67th minute - and Milinkovic-Savic was again the creator. The former Lazio midfielder produced an intelligent pass behind the defence for the overlapping Saud Abdulhamid, with the Saudi international right-back dancing past two defenders before slotting home with his left from close range against his childhood club.

Abdullah Al Mayouf, the former Al Hilal goalkeeper, was beaten for the third time on the night.

Having defeated Al Ittihad 4-3 in Jeddah back on Matchweek 5, the runaway leaders leave the defending champions in fifth place, two points behind Al Taawoun.

It was yet another win for Portuguese coach Jorge Jesus against Marcelo Gallardo, with the Al Hilal boss, then in charge of Flamengo, having famously beaten the Argentine’s River Plate in the 2019 Copa Libertadores final.