Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, on 13 points, have already confirmed their spot in the Round of 16 while Qatar’s Al Gharafa need to start picking up wins if they are to stand a chance of advancing.<\/p>\n
Al Hilal returned to winning ways by defeating Al Shabab on Saturday, having seen their 46-match Saudi Pro League run ended by Al Khaleej and losing their perfect start to the AFC Champions League Elite 2024\/25 following a draw against Al Sadd SC last week.
\nThe four-time Asian champions, however, are almost unbeatable when playing in Riyadh and will head into the tie on the back of a nine-match unbeaten home run on the continental stage, winning seven of those games.<\/p>\n
Al Gharafa have only defeated Al Hilal once in their six previous meetings but the Qatari side have to give it their best if they are harbouring hopes of a knockout stage spot.
\nGoal difference had them occupying the eighth and final knockout stage spot from the West Zone but it is a risky position as even bottom-placed Al Ain FC are just three points behind them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, on 13 points, have already confirmed their spot in the Round of 16 while Qatar’s Al Gharafa need to start picking up wins if they are to stand a chance of advancing. Al Hilal returned to winning ways by defeating Al Shabab on Saturday, having seen their 46-match Saudi Pro League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1044617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-1044616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afc-news","tag-afc","tag-afc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1044616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1044616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1044616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1044616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}