Faisali, Wihdat contest Asian matches

AMMAN  —  Faisali play UAE’s Sharja on Monday in their second match of the Asian Football Confederation  (AFC) Champions League round robin group stages. 

Faisali lost to Uzbekistan’s NasafQarshi 1-0 as Group B matches kicked off last week with Qatar’s Sadd tying Sharja 0-0 in the same group.

The top team from each group will advance to Round 2 alongside the top 3 second placed teams.

On the other hand, Wihdat, playing the second tier Asian competition, the  AFC Cup, will play Kuwait SC on Tuesday in their second match.

Wihdat beat Aleppo’s Ittihad 2-0 as Group Bmatches kicked off with a Iraq’s Kahraba’a tying Kuwait SC 0-0 in the group.

Earlier this season, Wihdat were eliminated from the AFC Champions League, losing 3-0 to Ahli Dubai in the preliminary round after they played in two earlier editions.

In 2022, Wihdat were eliminated in the Champions Leaguegroup stages after becoming the first of the Kingdom’s clubs to play in the round robin group stages in 2021. None of the Kingdom’s clubs have ever made it past the ACL preliminary round where Faisali played in 2020 and 2018,  Wihdat in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 and Shabab Urdun in 2014.

Earlier this year, Shabab Urdun played at the preliminary round of the King Salman Clubs Cup (the 2023 Arab Club Champions Cup, where they were eliminated by Mauritania’s FC Nouadhibou. 

A total of 37 teams participated in the 30th season of the event —  the Arab world’s leading club football tournament, organised by UAFA- with a total of $10 million of prize money awarded. Morocco’s Raja CA are the defending champions.