Last summer, the Saudi league spent money frantically and poached dozens of strong stars from Europe, and most netizens have no doubt that the AFC Champions League will become the bag of Saudi clubs.
But to win the AFC Champions League, it is not as easy as imagined, not on paper strength can win. Even Riyadh Crescent, which has the longest winning streak of 34 consecutive wins in world football, is now in the semi-finals.
In the early hours of this morning, Beijing time, in the second leg of the AFC Champions League semifinals, Riyadh Crescent defeated Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates 2-1 at home, with an aggregate score of 4-5 and missed the final. After the elimination of the crescent, the four Saudi clubs participating in this season have all been wiped out in the AFC Champions League.
In last week's first-leg match, Argentine legend Crespo's Al Ain pulled off a surprise 4-2 win over Crescent, and it was controversial for the home side to win three penalties, but in terms of results, they did end Crescent's unbeatable 34-game winning streak.
The previous record in world football was the 27-game winning streak set by the Welsh New Saints in 2016, and this season Riyadh Crescent has soared to a smashing record of 34 games. During that 34-game winning streak, Crescent scored 100 goals and conceded just 15.
However, the new moon's wild rush was successfully intercepted by Al Ain, and although the Saudis returned to win 2-1 at home, they failed to turn the tables, and the injury of the main center Mitrovic was an important reason.
This also means that Crescent's dream of winning the quadruple this season has been disillusioned (AFC Champions League, Saudi Super League, Saudi Super Cup, Saudi King Cup), they have won the Saudi Super Cup, and it is only a matter of time before the Saudi Super League is crowned, but the most important AFC Champions League title has been lost, at most, it can only be the triple crown in domestic competitions.
High worth does not mean strong! Saudi Arabia has been completely annihilated
The four Saudi clubs participating in the AFC Champions League this season are: Riyadh Crescent, Riyadh Victory, Jeddah United, and Faha.
In the AFC Champions League team value ranking, the top three of the Saudi league are ahead of other clubs, Riyadh Crescent 242 million euros, Riyadh Victory 144 million euros, Jeddah United 101 million euros, the fourth Qatar Duhail only 49.53 million euros, the fifth Sade 42.98 million euros. Before the round of 8, Riyadh also won the top two odds to win the championship.
Last year, a number of Saudi clubs made a move to sign Benzema, Kante, Neymar, Mane, Milinkovic, Mitrovic, Ronaldo, Neves, Koulibaly, Laporte and other well-known stars, but they failed to beat last year's results in the AFC Champions League (last season's new moon reached the AFC Champions League final).
Faha lost to Riyadh Victory in the round of 16, Jeddah United lost to Crescent in the 8-4 stage, and Riyadh Victory and Riyadh Crescent were eliminated by Al Ain in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively.
The whole team of Al Ain is worth only 34.4 million euros, which is only 1/7 of the new moon. Al Ain's most valuable Moroccan striker Rahimi is only 6 million euros, and there are 8 people worth more than 10 million in the new moon. But the end result was a promotion for Al Ain.
Al Ain reached the AFC Champions League final for the fourth time in their history, and they eliminated two teams backed by the Saudi royal family in succession on the way to qualifying. Al Ain will be played between Ulsan HD and Yokohama Marinos.
In fact, in the heyday of the Chinese Super League "Jinyuan Football" a few years ago, there was a similar phenomenon.
We all know that it was not only the Guangzhou team (Evergrande) that burned money at that time, at that time, Shanghai Port (SIPG), Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Taishan (Luneng), Beijing Guoan, Jiangsu Team (Suning), Tianjin Quanjian, Hebei Team (Huaxia Happiness) and other Chinese Super League clubs have set off an arms race, and have spent a lot of money to sign world famous coaches or foreign aids, and the value of Chinese players who are not in the stream has been speculated to 9 figures.
But what they put together, in the final analysis, is a deformed team, several super foreign aid + domestic players who are dragging their feet, and the long board cannot fully make up for the loopholes of the short board.
In the AFC Champions League, except for the Guangzhou team in 2013 and 2015, the best results of other Chinese Super League clubs? It can be seen how difficult it is for Guangzhou Evergrande to win the AFC Champions League twice, not only to burn money, but also to burn the right place.
Among the 20 champions produced after the restructuring of the AFC Champions League in 2003, clubs from Japan and South Korea won 11 times, more than half, largely because their squad structure is more reasonable.