This is not a fairy tale or a Hollywood film: it is the true story of Al-Hilal, the Saudi team that took on Covid-19 and won. The story of a team that kept fighting and refused to accept defeat despite 24 of its staff, including 15 players, getting infected.
FIFA wrote on Twitter: “Al Hilal showed heroic spirit and overcame difficult circumstances, doing what was needed to reach the knockout stages, despite the absence of many of its players, coming top in the second group with 11 points.”
The world football governing body paid special tribute to Al-Hilal’s players, especially those infected by coronavirus.
“A special greeting to Al-Hilal and our wishes for a quick recovery for all,” it said.
The heroes of Al-Hilal headed to Qatar full of hope in their quest to defend their title as Asian champions, a prize they won last November when they beat Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds in the final at Japan’s Saitama Stadium.
We’ve become used to seeing Al-Hilal win. It has achieved more than any other Asian team, becoming the Asian team of the century. So its supporters were overwhelmingly optimistic ahead of the AFC Champions League. The team was in its best form after winning the Saudi Pro League, eight points ahead of its nearest rival.
But that optimism turned to anxiety as the team announced that six of its players had caught the Covid-19 disease before the first match in the AFC Champions League group stages, including captain Salman al-Faraj, star midfielder Nawaf al-Abed and key right-back Mohammad al-Barik, whose exceptional crossing has been key to many of Al Hilal’s goals.
In its first match, Al-Hilal faced Uzbek team Pakhtakor, clinching a hard-fought victory in the final second to come top in its group. Watching the match, there was a strange sensation that no players were missing; such was the existing team’s fighting spirit.
But coronavirus continued to attack, more ferociously than before. Soon, 12 players were infected, including the star of the Saudi national team Salem Al-Dosari, Italian playmaker Sebastian Giovinco and Saudi national left back Yaser Yaser Al-Shahrani.
Then the biggest disaster of all: French striker and the best player in last year’s AFC Champions League, Bafetimbi Gomis. By now, 15 Al-Hilal players had the disease.
Al-Hilal was set to be unable to play the next match against Iran’s Shahr Khodro, as under AFC rules, at least 13 players must be on its line-up before the game and the team only had nine available. Al-Hilal asked for the match to be postponed by a day or two but the AFC roundly rejected its request, forcing it to play or forfeit the match.
So the team borrowed three players from its under-18s squad, and the AFC allowed it to swap three goalkeepers who had come down with coronavirus, replacing them with two keepers from the youth team.
A lesser team would have collapsed under the pressure of playing a crucial match and needing a single point to progress to the knockout stages. On the starting line-up were two players who were unknown to Al-Hilal’s supporters. Moreover, on the reserve bench were just three players: two keepers and a member of the youth team. That left manager Răzvan Lucescu with just one available substitute.
But Al-Hilal again showed exceptional fighting spirit and nearly won, but the new face of Asian football, Mansour Al-Bishi, narrowly missed what would have been the decisive goal. The team battled its way to a draw, enough to gain the crucial point it needed to progress to the next stage.
Al-Hilal’s battle with the coronavirus will continue, and it is possible that more players will be infected. But the team has shown that it will fight on, down to its very last player.
Source: AIPS
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