The Arab Championship “King Salman Cup for Clubs” revealed some of its secrets with the completion of the first round of the group stage, where all sixteen participating teams played in the competition, so that the fans of the tournament could get to know the competing clubs closely.
The first round witnessed surprises at the level of results, with many incidents related to refereeing performance, while some doubts leaked among the fans about the level of professionals in the competition so far.
For the first time in the history of the Arab Championships, more than one player who previously won the Golden Ball “Balloon d’Or” participates, as French Karim Benzema, who won the last golden ball in 2022, participated with Al Ittihad Jeddah, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who won the five golden balls, continued his participation with the Saudi victory.
Championship surprises
• The tournament’s surprises began early after the Saudi Al-Hilal stumbled into a negative draw with the Libyan Al-Ahly of Tripoli, despite the participation of the dumbest stars recruited by the blue giants from Europe, in contrast to the Libyan team’s lack of professionals at the same level.
• The second surprise in the tournament was summed up in the great result that the Egyptian Zamalek won over the Tunisian Union of Monterey by a clean quadruple, at a time during which the white team, which came out in the zero season in its country, was suffering, and lost the Cairo Summit by a quadruple to Al-Ahly, before recovering in the Arab Championship without being held Deals before the competition to consolidate its ranks.
arbitration crisis
A major arbitration crisis occurred in the first match in the tournament between Moroccan Wydad and Al-Sadd of Qatar, in a match that ended in a goalless draw, and it was moderated by Egyptian international referee Mahmoud Al-Banna at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Sports City Stadium.
The player, Yahya Gebran, was sent off in the 36th minute of the match, after a violent intervention on the Qatari team player, amid objections from the Moroccan team players to the Egyptian referee.
• Wydad Club issued a statement describing the refereeing performance in its match as a “farce”, and criticized Al-Banna’s performance in a harsh manner in his speech, accusing him of being neutral in the match and siding with the other side.
First round numbers
• The referees reported the red card twice in the first round. Ironically, the two cards were in the first two matches in the competition. The first went to Yahya Gebran, the Wydad player, and the second to Sfaxien player Ahmed Al-Ajal in the face of the Iraqi police.
• Zamalek achieved the biggest result in the tournament so far by winning 4-0 against Ittihad Monastiri, to deservedly lead its group after its first appearance in the competition.
• The result (2-1) was repeated 3 times during 8 matches in the first round of the competition, as it occurred in the meetings of Ittihad Jeddah and Taraji, Moroccan Raja and Algerian youth Belouizdad, Emirati Al-Wehda and Kuwaiti Kuwait.
• A negative tie occurred 3 times in the first round, in the matches of Al-Ahly Tripoli and Al-Hilal, Al-Sadd and Al-Wadad, and Al-Nasr and Al-Shabab, and no other tie occurred with different results in the tournament so far.
• No team succeeded in beating its rival by more than one goal, with the exception of Zamalek, where the results of the victory ranged between 1-0 and 2-1, and no team found it easy to outperform its competitor by a comfortable margin of goals.
2023-07-28 22:42:56
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