Urawa Red Diamonds will play the second leg of the AFC Champions League (ACL) Final against Saudi Arabian powerhouse Al-Hilal and will aim for the first ACL title in 10 years on Saturday 25 November at Saitama Stadium 2002.

Urawa were last crowned with the ACL title in 2007, while Al-Hilal, the runners up in 2014, are looking to hoist the trophy for the first time in their club history.

The first leg held in Saudi Arabia a week ago was a 1-1 draw. With this result, Urawa will win the tournament with either a win or a scoreless draw on away goals rule. If the game is tied 1-1 after 90 minutes of play, then it will go into 15-minute-half overtime. In case of a draw with two or more goal scored in regulation time, Al-Hilal will become the winners of the championship. If the game is still tied after extra time, then the penalty shootout will decide the winners of the final. On the side note, the away goals rule will not be applied for any goals scored during overtime.

The first match of the final took place in the City of Riyadh. While Urawa’s forward Rafael DA SILVA broke through the opposing defence on the left and scored the opening goal by tapping in the deflection of his own shot in the 8th minute, Al-Hilal equalised the match with the shot by Syrian forward Omar KHRIBIN in the 37th minute.

Al-Hilal aim for their first ACL title

Al-Hilal made their 13th ACL appearance, but have yet to win the tournament since the current format was introduced in 2002. However, they had become the crowned champions of Asia in the former Asian club competition, Asia Club Championship. The closest the Saudi Arabian side came to winning the ACL competition was in 2014 when they lost to Western Sydney Wanderers FC (Australia) in the final. They reached the last four in 2010 and 2015.

Al-Hilal is led by former Argentine international striker Ramón Diaz, who played for Yokohama Marinos from 1993 to 1995 and became the top scorer in the J.League in its inaugural 1993 season. As an Argentine international, he came to Japan in 1979 to compete in the FIFA World Youth Championship, where he performed well and helped his national team win the youth tournament of the first time in history.

After leaving the J.League, Diaz went back to his home country and started his coaching career at his former club, River Plate. Since then, he has managed several clubs in Argentina and Mexico as well as the Paraguay National Team. He took over the coaching position at Al Hilal in October 2016 and in the first year he led the team to the 14th league title, which the club had failed to win it since the 2011 season. Furthermore, the team won the domestic cup competition and attained superb results last year. Al-Hilal in the current 2017-18 season are trailing the leaders Al-Ahli only by a single point with two less matches being played.

The Saudi Arabian club have many players with aggressive style of play. Khribin is their key player with experience competing against Japan National Team as a Syrian international. In the first leg, he came close to Urawa’s goal on a number of occasions by capitalising on his finesse, physical strength and superb body balance, and scored a goal, which put him in first place of the scoring ranking with 10 goals in the ACL tournament.

Brazilian high-scoring midfielder CARLOS EDUARDO who has tallied seven goals so far in this tournament is questionable for the second match due to the injury he suffered in the first leg. The squad, however, list many other capable players such as Uruguayan midfielder Nicolás MILESI whose wide vision and effective ball feeds allow him to initiate excellent attacks for the team. In addition, fourteen players are on the Saudi Arabia National Team including attacking midfielder Salem ALDAWSARISA and two threatening fullbacks, Yasser AL-SHAHRANI and Mohammed ALBURAYK.

Diaz spoke of the draw in the first match at home, 'It’s not a bad result. It would have been a different story if we had failed to create good chances, but as a matter of fact, our performance was better than theirs. We are capable to play a big match in Japan as well. I believe that we can turn things around in the second match.' 

Al-Hilal arrived in Japan on Sunday 19 November and began training on Monday 20 in Saitama.

Urawa aim for ACL title with perfect home record

Urawa Red Diamonds flew back to Japan on Sunday 19 and resumed training from the following day.

Restructuring in defence started under new coach HORI Takafumi, who took over the position at the end of July, and it showed clear improvements in the ACL semi-finals against Shanghai SIPG (China). Their defence now creates stability in the team. In the first leg against Al-Hilal, Urawa effectively dealt with the opponents’ physicality and played with great concentration throughout the match.

Just as they did against Shanghai SIPG, Urawa scored an away goal and drew the first leg. Urawa will play the second leg at home, where they had succeeded in winning all six matches that they had previously played in this tournament.

Defender ABE Yuki, who was on Urawa’s last ACL champions squad in 2007, expresses his aspiration, ‘We will play hard and make sure that we achieve this goal.’

Midfielder NAGASAWA Kazuki, whose outstanding performance in the semi-final opened the door to his national team debut against Belgium on Tuesday 14 this month, has been in excellent form and added more depth in club’s midfield. Japanese international defender MAKINO Tomoaki has also contributed to the team by playing centre back in place of defender MAURICIO who was suspended in the previous match.

It is expected that Al-Hilal’s will attack even more aggressively from the start than the first match, and Urawa will be forced to defend against them. The new signing of Mauricio in August has helped the team’s defensive efforts and added stability in the backline. His return in the second leg is a great plus for Urawa.

In attacks, Urawa’s forward players worked hard and showed their presence in the defensive side of the game in the first match. Now that the second match is being played at home, more menacing and goal-scoring plays are expected from their playmaker KASHIWAGI Yosuke and J.League’s joint top scorer KOROKI Shinzo. Added is the scoring power from Rafael DA SILVA, who is currently third in the ACL scoring rankings with eight goals. If he can display his excellent footwork with his knack for scoring at home, it will be a huge threat for the opponents.

Urawa’s goalkeeper Nishikawa braced himself even with an advantage of having an away goal scored and playing at home and stated, ‘Nothing is yet decided. We will go all out and secure a win to become the champions in Asia.’

The match is scheduled to kick-off at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday 25 November at Saitama Stadium 2002.

Tournament Period：24 January 2017 (Tue.) ～ 25 November 2017 (Sat.)

Final 2nd Leg
25 November 2017 (Sat.) Kick-ff TBC
Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan) vs Al-Hilal (Saudi Arabia)

For Tournament Information