Diriyah tied 0-0 with Abha, and Riyadh defeated Al-Khuloud with a clean double

Portuguese Bruno Lage, Diriyah coach, expressed his conviction in the goalless draw against Abha in the Saudi League, explaining that the defensive improvement witnessed by the system over the past months will be followed by intensive work to develop offensive effectiveness.

Lage said during the press conference after the confrontation: It is easy to talk about this match; In the first half, we lost a lot of balls, and this made us lose confidence on the field, but we made changes between the two halves and created chances in the second half, and I think a draw is a fair result today.

When asked about the team’s defensive solidity versus its offensive struggles against opponents that do not possess the ball, he answered: I agree with this proposition. We need to improve in some offensive situations, so we changed the plan today. We were able to build a good defensive system during the past two months, and in the coming period we will work to develop the offensive side as required.

In turn, Croatian Damir Boric, the coach of the Abha team, expressed his dissatisfaction after the draw, stressing that the result does not reflect the course of the match and is not considered fair.

Boric said during the press conference after the confrontation: What happened today is exactly similar to what happened in the Al-Nasr match. We played very well in the first half, and in every match this season we create chances, but we face strange misfortune. I am not completely satisfied with the result of the draw.

He added: In the second half, the team's effort clearly decreased and the pace of the match declined, while Al-Diriyah made some substitutions that gave them more vitality. In the first half, I expected that we would come out ahead by one or two goals for nothing, but in the second half there was a parity between the two teams, and for me I do not see that the result of the tie was fair at all.

Buric concluded his speech by referring to the score of points and evaluating his administrative and technical work, saying: We obtained two points and could have achieved 5 points or more, and some people do not take these circumstances into consideration. I don't like to talk about my work or my future; I am a professional coach and I try hard to make things work. In times of success and positivity, everyone is praised, and in times of negativity, only one person is held responsible. In the end, we will complete our work, talk to the players, and make the best use of the downtime.

Riyadh broke the arrogance of its ecstatic immortality with its perfect results in the Saudi Professional League this season, and inflicted its first loss after defeating it by a clean double in the confrontation that brought them together in Riyadh in the seventh round of the tournament.

The Riyadh team regained the tone of victories, which it had missed in the previous two stages. Kader Keita opened the scoring for Riyadh in the 65th minute, while his teammate Rodrigo Abascal added the second goal for the Capital team in the 89th minute, eliminating the guest team’s hopes of achieving a tie at the very least. With that result, Riyadh’s score, which suffered a harsh 0-5 loss to Al-Ahly before drawing 0-0 with Al-Khaleej in the last two stages of the competition, rose to 8 points in first place. Ten, after achieving its second victory in the competition during the current season in exchange for two draws and three defeats. On the other hand, the balance of Al-Khuloud, which received its first loss in the tournament this season against 3 wins and 3 draws, froze at 12 points in seventh place.