Players of Al Hilal celebrate after scoring a goal in the Saudi Pro League game against Al Shabab at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 21, 2025. /VCG
Saudi Pro League defending champions Al Hilal will host Gwangju from South Korea’s K League 1 in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League Elite quarterfinals at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium on Friday.
Ai Hilal are currently six points behind leaders Al Ittihad in the domestic league with five games remaining after winning only one of their past four games. The 3-1 loss to city rivals Al Nassr was a hard blow to their title defense.
Last season, Al Hilal were eliminated from the Champions League Elite by UAE Pro League’s Al Ain in the semifinals. The team’s coach Jorge Jesus said they will spare no effort to lift the continental trophy.
“It’s a competition that we haven’t won,” Jesus said. “Last year we won all the titles except the Asian Champions League, so we are very committed and knowing that it will be a tough competition, but we want to be playing the game, in this case, tomorrow’s game, the quarterfinals, we want to reach our level to be able to get past the semifinals.”
By contrast, visiting Gwangju have nothing to lose in the coming clash since it’s already an impressive campaign for them. The tournament debutants were expected to struggle in the last 16, but were able to overturn a 2-0 deficit to knock out Japanese side Vissel Kobe to win 3-2 on aggregate. Lee Jung-Hyo’s side are currently third in the K League 1 table after ten games, four points off top spot after a win over Seoul at the weekend. Lee knows his team are the underdogs against Al Hilal but he’s expecting the game to be a close one.
“Definitely going to be an interesting game coming up, so I asked our players to compete with confidence, and we have to challenge, right?” Lee said. “We have to challenge against this big-name team, and especially for our fans. because of course, our fans are going to have high expectations for the result of the upcoming match. So we should respond to our fans, and the feeling that we have a good, positive result that’s going to come out of it. As for the details, we’re going to play our Gwangju style as usual and we’re going to play our offensive and aggressive style as usual, for getting some interesting points in our games. So I really have a good expectation for this match.”
