The first edition of the AFC Champions League Elite is to begin tomorrow, with global stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Riyad Mahrez looking to lead their Saudi Arabian clubs to success in Asia.
Al-Nassr, Al-Hilal and Al-Ahli are among the favorites to win the final in May next year and reinforce the ambitions of the Saudi Pro League (SPL) of becoming one of the best in the world.
In the summer transfer windows of last year and this year, SPL clubs spent more than US$1 billion on transfers to bring top-level players from the big European leagues.
Photo: AFP
Al-Hilal midfielder Ruben Neves last year joined the team from Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers for a fee of about US$60 million and has no doubt that the SPL has enough quality.
“I have said this a few times — if you compare my data from English football to Saudi football, I run even more, but with the difference that I run in 40 degrees” Celsius, Neves said after helping Portugal to a 2-1 UEFA Nations League win over Scotland on Tuesday with Ronaldo scoring the winning goal.
“I am in good shape physically. Both Cristiano and I proved today that Saudi football has quality,” Neves said.
Neymar’s Al-Hilal is the most successful team in Asia, with four continental titles. They are to start their League Elite campaign against Al-Rayyan of Qatar.
Ronaldo won five UEFA Champions Leagues, but has yet to win a major trophy with Al-Nassr. He is to face Iraq’s Al-Shorta, while Mahrez’s Al-Ahli are to host Persepolis of Iran in Jeddah.
As well as their big stars, also reinforcing the chances of the giants from Jeddah and Riyadh is that from the quarter-finals stage on, all games are to take place in Saudi Arabia.
However, there are bigger changes.
The Elite version replaced the AFC Champions League as the continent’s top tournament.
The number of teams participating has been reduced from 40 to 24. Instead of 10 groups of four, there are two groups of 12, divided into East and West geographic zones, with teams playing eight games and the top eight progressing to the second round.
In the East zone, China, South Korea and Japan have the maximum allocation of three teams, although Australia has only the Central Coast Mariners.
Clubs from the A-League have struggled in the AFC Champions League in the past few years, but if the Mariners can succeed, there might be more places for them.
“We know if we perform and we carry out our game plan and play our way, we know we can compete,” Central Coast head coach Mark Jackson said. “We’ve shown that. Whether we can compete consistently on that front, again with the size of squads these teams have, how they can travel because I’m sure these teams travel in a different way to how we travel.”
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