Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al-Ahli ended a long drought in major tournament triumphs, particularly on the continental stage, by clinching the revamped AFC Elite Champions League title with a historic 2-0 victory over Japan\u2019s Kawasaki Frontale on Saturday.
\nIn a night to remember at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, known as the \u201cShining Jewel,\u201d Brazilian forward Galeno and Ivorian midfielder Franck Kessi\u00e9 scored in a dramatic final that marked a turning point for the Jeddah-based club.
\nThousands of jubilant Al-Ahli fans turned the stadium into a sea of green, celebrating their team\u2019s return to continental glory. The win not only revived memories of past successes for the club, nicknamed the \u201cCastle of Trophies,\u201d but also gave Saudi football a fresh milestone\u2014securing the first title in the competition\u2019s new format.
\nSheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, President of the Asian Football Confederation, crowned Al-Ahli as champions of the new-look AFC Elite Champions League on Saturday night, alongside Saudi Sports Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, who presented gold medals to the victorious players and silver medals to Japan\u2019s Kawasaki Frontale.
\nAl-Ahli entered the final with a star-studded lineup featuring goalkeeper Edouard Mendy; defenders Ali Majrashi, Merih Demiral, Roger Iba\u00f1ez and Ezgjan Alioski; midfielders Ziyad Al-Juhani, Franck Kessi\u00e9, and Riyad Mahrez; and an attacking trio of Galeno, Roberto Firmino, and Ivan Toney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al-Ahli ended a long drought in major tournament triumphs, particularly on the continental stage, by clinching the revamped AFC Elite Champions League title with a historic 2-0 victory over Japan\u2019s Kawasaki Frontale on Saturday. In a night to remember at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, known as the \u201cShining Jewel,\u201d Brazilian forward …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47829,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47828\/revisions\/47829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}