Group A: Al-Ahli (UAE) Al Hilal Pakhtakor Tashkent Saba Batry Group B: Al-Shabab Al-Garrafa Piroozi (Perspolis) Winner Of Match No.1 in Play Off - Final Group C: Al-Ittihad Al-Jazira Esteghlal Tehran Umm salal Group D: Al-Ettifaq Al-Shabab (UAE) KURUVCHI BUNYODKOR Sepahan
Who will qualify? I predict: Group A: 1. Al Hilal 2. Al Ahly Group B: 1. Piroozi (Perspolis) 2. Al Shabab Group C: 1. Al-Ittihad 2. Al-Jazira Group D: 1. Bunyodkor 2. Sepahan
Signings (Until now) Majed Al-Amri from Ittifaq to Shabab (!) Nasr means business ... It's Official: Hilal sign Essa Al-Mehayyani for ... (still not confirmed) Al Shabab sign Ahmed Ajab Korea's Seal Ki Heon join Al Hilal
So how does a team qualify for ACL? Do it like Europe and top 4 at the end of the season get to go? Also Predictions: Group A: Al-Ahli (UAE) Al Hilal Pakhtakor Tashkent Saba Batry Group B: Al-Shabab Al-Garrafa Piroozi (Perspolis) Winner Of Match No.1 in Play Off - Final Group C: Al-Ittihad Al-Jazira Esteghlal Tehran Umm salal Group D: Al-Ettifaq Al-Shabab (UAE) KURUVCHI BUNYODKOR Sepahan
Every country can set its own criteria. Nobody knows for sure how the Saudi FA goes about it. I think they let the top 2 in the league play, plus the winner of the Crown Prince Cup and the winner of the King's Cup; or possibly the top 3 in the league plus the winner of the King's Cup. The reason nobody knows for sure is that no matter what formula you apply to last season's results, you'll end up with the same four teams (because Hilal won both the league and cup, and Shabab finished 3rd and also won the King's Cup, and Ettifaq were runners up in the Crown Prince Cup and also fourth in the league). Most people are under the impression that it's the top 4 in the league who get to play, but I doubt that that's true.
By the way, the first round of matches is on the 10th and 11th of this month, so a week from Tuesday.
hilal were looking some what promising this season ..but now its vertually over...shabab and ittihad will hace some easy ways...ittifaq are underdogs but can still qualify....as for hilal they struggle in international competitons...see there previous appearances in afc champions league....
How could you say it's "vertually" over when the first match hasn't even been played yet?! We suffered a big blow (mainly because the way he was fired may affect the performance of Rodoi and Wilhelmsson), but until we see how Hilal plays it ain't over til it's over. Al-Hilal is the most successful Saudi club of all time in international competitions, has a better Asian Championship record than any other Saudi club, and would be even more successful if the FA wouldn't sabotage them so often. Shabab will be crushed by Persepolis. Their team is very moody and inconsistent; not very strong mentally. They are prone to spectacular collapses and only seem to get their act together against Al-Hilal, which I guess is like a big one-sided derby for them. Ettifaq have no chance either, I'm afraid.
Yes, but the other Saudi clubs haven't done any better. Hilal is the only Saudi club to reach the second round in the last 3 years. I'm just saying you can't single out Al-Hilal's performances because the others haven't been much better.
I was just answering an assertion with facts. By the way, if you're into violins, you should pay a visit to your team's montadayat.
What facts? It's just your ususal mix of hyperbole mixed with self pity. And I find it rich (even insulting) how a fan of the most powerful and connected team in the country dares to portray them as David in a struggle against Goliath. And construing the club vs country debate as a conspiracy against Hilal is particularly pathetic. For all of Hilal's considerable influence, the national team takes precedence for the powers that be because of it's nation building aspect (like the Janadriya, and other patriotic rubbish). It's not like Hilal are the only ones affected by the calling up of internationals. Ittihad has suffered from that. I still remember Ittihad's heartbreaking game against Esteghlal at the Azadi where we lost in injury time (and lost the tie on away goals) in a game where we had internationals missing. And don't do that stupid argument that we have few internationals. At the time we had 7 international players, including the keeper and 3 of the back 4. Furthermore, Hilal has been a BENEFICIARY of the FA's continental participation decisions. In 1999 they took Ittihad's place in the ACC on the spurious grounds that Hilal makes a more worthy representative than Ittihad. Hilal crashed out that year. Ittihad won the ACWC. Some representative. Then you have in 2002 when the FA decided to skip a year in the selection of champions. Who lost out? Ittihad Who gained? Hilal. As for the claims to have by far the best Asian record. You won 2 champion cups, same number as Ittihad, and 2 cup winners cups, as opposed to Ittihad's 1. Wow, what dominance. More to the point, this is out of many more participations (some of which as noted above stolen from Ittihad). Another telling thing is that they were all in the old hosted format, and all won in editions hosted in the gulf (2 in Riyadh, 2 in Doha). Ittihad traveled to Korea and Japan for their victories. Japanese Korean and Iranian teams have also won outside of their comfort zone.
Ittihad qualified for it automatically (and still took 4 goals from Al-Karameh). I made a mistake regarding Shabab. That's when they took 6 goals from Ulsan, wasn't it? That's what I had in mind. Hilal didn't take part in that one. This is the one where Ahli finished bottom of their group right? So, at minimum, the other teams haven't been any better than Hilal in the last 3 seasons. Only Hilal and Shabab qualified from the group stage, and I'm sure you'll agree Shabab had the worse performance.
In the last three years yes but if you count the performances since their last cup triumph (2002) Other teams have been better. And let's be realistic. The toughest team from your group was disqualifed (Esteghlal) and Kuwait Club and Pakhtokor aren't as tough as Sephan or Al Ain.
Ittihad obviously have been better. But who else? Again. You can't single out Hilal as being worse than the others.
More like your constant personal attacks. You know very well I was simply answering ittihady. Hah yeah Ittihad is David v. Goliath, right ; )? As for being the most powerful and connected team, well you would say that wouldn't you? I don't blame you guys for repeating that so often, though, because it works. Now every punishment for Hilal has to be doubled. Every team has to lobby for its rights under our system, but to claim that the brothers of King Faisal's assasin are more connected than: Khalid ibn Sultan (Shabab), the sons of King Faisal and King Abdullah (Ahli), Aseer El-Shawg and his dad allah yr7amah (Al-Nasr), and Abdelme7sen Al-el-Sheikh (you know ... Prince Sultan's in-law who made his fortune from the Kuwait war?)+Mohammad ibn Fahad (Ittihad), is something that beggars belief. Anyway, I never claimed that Hilal is "David v. Goliath." I can definitely list facts and events that would point in that direction, or that would at least tear to pieces the notion of Hilal being "the most powerful" club, but I don't want to take the forum in that direction. However, if someone says something that I think is wrong about Al-Hilal, I will answer it, just like I do my best to correct mistakes about other topics, and expect the same from others regarding my own mistakes. I never said it was a conspiracy. All I'm saying is that the FA did these things, and these things hurt Hilal. Doesn't have to be a conspiracy (although there have been people like Al-Walid ibn Badr in the AFC, but I'm sure they were minding their own business); just means that our FA doesn't really give a **** about Hilal. Maybe they would have done the same to any other club in our situation (though I hope you forgive me if I have a hard time believing they would do it to Al-Nasr ). YOU guys constantly claim that there are conspiracies to help Hilal, yet conveniently ignore these kinds facts. I think you're engaging in a little bit of projection here. By the way isn't it great how when they call up Hilal players it's called wasta, but when they don't call up so many it's to help Hilal? The latest theory I've heard is that Hilal is using the NT to "develop" their players. : D Never said that. But the gentleman was talking about Hilal, not Ittihad. But just imagine if this had happened to Ittihad in a FINAL? At a time when no Saudi club had ever won an Asian title? You guys would be making la6miyyat about it like the battle of Karbala. : D You're right. It is a stupid argument. I don't understand why you would answer it, though, seeing that I never made it. You mean this one? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CdwcmitNRQ"]YouTube - ????? ?????? - ????? 1419[/ame] بيض الله وجيههم. This was a while back, and I wasn't following Saudi football that closely that year, but as I understand it, teams back then had to choose between the Arab Champions League and the Asian Club Championship, and your team chose the former (which they lost -- not judging! ; )). That was because of the new format; it's not Hilal's fault they won the league in the same year that the AFC created the new Champions League format. They did the same thing after the merging of the Arab tournaments, and Hilal wasn't involved. 7abibi la tgawwilni shayy ma giltah. I never said "by far" (although that would still be arguable). By the way, it's two ACC's, two ACWC's, and two Super Cups, AND we were runners-up in the ACC twice. We didn't participate that much more than Ittihad. Between 1992 and 2000, Hilal took part 3 times, won twice and reached the semis once. Prior to that, Hilal played in 3 tournaments, and came in second twice. That's a damn good record. Ittihad won 2 out of 7, and no runners-up spots. Not a bad record, either, but your belittling of Hilal's record is unjustified. As for the tournament being allegedly easier in the past, well it's not Hilal's fault that it took Itti until 1997 to win the league, and other Saudi teams (Shabab, Nasr, Ittifaq) tried to win it under the old system and failed. No one's arguing that the team didn't exactly set the tournament on fire after 2003, though I think the team would have at least reached the latter stages in 2006 if it wasn't sabotaged by the taking of Paqueta and then the taking of the international players before the Uzbek trip. I love how you extended the notion of "home games" to include the Gulf. At least that's an improvement over others who claim Hilal never won a trophy outside of Riyadh. Hilal won two Super Cups which were home and away, both against East Asian clubs, including winning in Japan in 2001. In 1998, we lost the semi-final in East Asia after some refereeing decisions so horrendous, that even the Korean team's defender who dragged Nawwaf down in the box went over to Nawwaf Al-Temyat to console him! Hilal never had a problem playing in East Asia when they had to. By the way, do you remember Shabab losing the ACC final to Pas "in the Gulf"? That was Shabab's best ever team -- the one from which most of the 1994 World Cup squad was drawn.
Don't know about Japan and Korea, but Iranian clubs have 3 titles: 1 in Tehran, 1 in Bangladesh, and 1 in Bahrain, so all in West Asia.