Al Hilal beats Al Taawoun 6-0 and confirms its readiness to face Al Gharafa in the AFC Champions League

Mohamed Mahzri, Al Hilal player, confirmed that their determination to enter the match against Al-Taawoun with strength was what contributed to the team emerging victorious with a score of 6-0.

He added: “In the last match against NEOM, we were not technically good, so we decided to show a strong reaction in the Al-Taawoun match, and we succeeded in that, and during this confrontation we raised the level of focus, and corrected the mistakes we made against NEOM, specifically in the part of dealing with set pieces.”

He continued: “Tomorrow, we will begin preparing for the next confrontation against Qatar’s Al-Gharafa in the AFC Elite Champions League. We are dealing with each match separately, and God willing, we will succeed in achieving victories.”

Regarding his greeting to the fans of Al-Taawoun, his former team, he said: “Al-Taawoun Club has a preference for me, and its fans I have special pride and love for, so they deserve my salute, and loss is common in the world of football, and I wish success for Al-Taawoun in the future.”

The Spanish Al-Nasr defender Martinez snatched a ball that the Portuguese Gulf player Miguel Crespo intended to take out due to the injury of one of his teammates, so that the substitute striker, Abdullah Al-Hamdan, received it and shot it powerfully into the visitors’ net as a goal in a 1-1 tie, sparking a controversy on the field between the coaches of the two teams, during the match that brought them together in Dammam in the seventh round of the Saudi Professional League.

Al-Nasr failed to chase leaders Al-Hilal, which defeated its host Al-Taawoun 6/0 earlier, on Saturday, and was satisfied with its stalling point in the summit struggle.

Omar Mascarell scored Al-Khaleej's lead in the first minute of stoppage time in the first half, and Abdullah Al-Hamdan equalized for Al-Nasr in the 72nd minute.

Al-Nasr raised its score to 16 points in third place, on goal difference from Al-Qadisiyah in fourth place, noting that Al-Hilal leads the standings with 18 points, followed by Al-Ittihad with 17 points, while Al-Khaleej has 5 points in twelfth place, on goal difference from Al-Riyadh, which is in 13th place, before the round’s competitions are completed.

English Ollie Watkins, Al Hilal striker, said that they succeeded in showing a good reaction by defeating Al-Taawoun with a score of 6-0, after their previous loss to NEOM in the Saudi Professional League.

The English player added: “I feel that we are in a good position. This is what we wanted to do. The thing that differed in the Al-Taawoun match compared to the match with NEOM is that NEOM then retreated back and tried to put pressure on us. He was waiting for us to make mistakes, then launched into counterattacks. We knew that this would be the way in which Al-Taawoun might play, and all my thoughts were focused on the match itself.”