King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh will host a fiery summit at nine o’clock in the evening next Friday, where Al-Hilal and Al-Nasr will meet in the 101st match in the history of the two teams’ confrontations, within the 15th round of the Saudi Roshan League competitions for the 2023-2024 season.
Al-Hilal enters the match at the top of the league standings with 38 points, while its traditional rival, Al-Nasr, comes in second place with 34 points, 7 points behind Al-Ahly, which is in third place, and Al-Ittihad (the defending champion) occupies fourth place with 25 points.
The match is expected to be full of excitement and competition, given the two teams have international stars in their ranks. The match also represents great importance in the intense struggle between the two teams for the league title this season.
This confrontation will be different from what it was, which brought them together at the beginning of the current season in the final of the King Salman Cup for Arab Clubs, which Al-Nassr won and snatched the title, due to the readiness of the two teams and the completion of their technical papers, despite the biggest deficiency in Al-Hilal’s map, which is the absence of the Brazilian Neymar, who suffered an injury. He tore the cruciate ligament with his country, Brazil, and will be absent until the end of the season.
The confrontation will be vengeful and intense between Portuguese coaches Luis Castro “Al-Nasr” and Jorge Jesus “Al-Hilal”, as Al-Hilal and Al-Nasr are the most victorious in the current league, as Al-Hilal leads with 12 wins, followed by Al-Nasr with 11.
The two teams have met in 100 matches over the past years, and Al-Hilal has an advantage of 10 matches over its traditional rival, Al-Nasr, as it succeeded in winning 40 matches, compared to Al-Nasr achieving a victory in 30 matches, while it also drew a draw between them in 30 matches.
Al-Hilal continues to excel in the scoring aspect as well, as it scored 146 goals against its traditional rival, Al-Nasr, during the 100 matches, while Al-Ashraf Al-Asmi scored 116 goals.
The capital derby will have a different rivalry this time, as the leaders, Al Hilal, include a group of international stars, led by Serbian striker Mitrovic and his compatriot Savic, in addition to the Brazilian duo Malcolm and Michel, the Portuguese Rubén Neves, the Senegalese Khalidou Koulibaly, and the Moroccan goalkeeper Yacine Bounou.
Al Hilal also has brilliant artistic names, led by the winner of the Best Asian Player Award, Salem Al Dosari, who had a distinguished presence in the derby matches, and he is joined by Ali Al Bulayhi, Salman Al Faraj, Saud Abdul Hamid, Yasser Al Shahrani, Muhammad Al Buraik, and Muhammad Kanno.
As for Al-Nasr, it brings in its ranks the most prominent Portuguese star, Cristiano Ronaldo, the team’s captain and top scorer, who has a great scoring presence in the team’s matches, in addition to the Brazilian Talisca, who also has a distinguished presence in the derby matches, in addition to Sadio Mane, the Portuguese Otavio, the Croatian Marcelo Brozovic, and the Spanish Laporte. And Brazilian Alex Telles.
Colombian Julio Cesar, the Al-Nasr player, is the holder of the fastest goal in the history of the derby at the league level, with his goal in the 2002 season in 1.17 seconds. As for Al-Hilal, Sami Al-Jaber holds the fastest record by scoring a goal for his team in the 2.34 minute during the 1993 season.
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