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Al-Hilal Aiming for Record 5th Asian Champions League Title

File photo: Football - Club World Cup - Semi Final - Flamengo v Al Hilal - Grand Stade de Tanger, Tangier, Morocco - February 7, 2023 Al Hilal's Salem Al-Dawsari celebrates scoring their second goal. (Reuters)
File photo: Football - Club World Cup - Semi Final - Flamengo v Al Hilal - Grand Stade de Tanger, Tangier, Morocco - February 7, 2023 Al Hilal's Salem Al-Dawsari celebrates scoring their second goal. (Reuters)
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Al-Hilal Aiming for Record 5th Asian Champions League Title

File photo: Football - Club World Cup - Semi Final - Flamengo v Al Hilal - Grand Stade de Tanger, Tangier, Morocco - February 7, 2023 Al Hilal's Salem Al-Dawsari celebrates scoring their second goal. (Reuters)
File photo: Football - Club World Cup - Semi Final - Flamengo v Al Hilal - Grand Stade de Tanger, Tangier, Morocco - February 7, 2023 Al Hilal's Salem Al-Dawsari celebrates scoring their second goal. (Reuters)

Al-Hilal is potentially 180 minutes away from extending its regional record of continental titles from four to five as it faces Urawa Reds of Japan in the first leg of the Asian Champions League final at Riyadh on Saturday.

With the Saudi national team upsetting eventual champion Argentina at the World Cup in Qatar last November, and Al-Hilal eliminating the champions of Africa and South America at the Club World Cup in February before losing the final 5-3 to Real Madrid, expectations are high in the host nation, The Associated Press said.

Al-Hilal is not only the defending continental champion -- and trying to become the first team since domestic rivals Al-Ittihad in 2004 and 2005 to win the AFC title back-to-back --but is also facing Urawa in the final for the third time in six years. The Japanese club won in 2017, with Al-Hilal avenging that two years later.

“We know that it's going to be a difficult game but that is what you expect when you reach a final,” Al-Hilal coach Ramon Diaz said. “We know what we have to do and we also know that this is the first half and then we go to Japan.”

Urawa is hosting the return leg on May 6 at Saitama Stadium, just north of Tokyo.

As well as several players who represented Saudi Arabia at the World Cup, Diaz can call upon in-form Odion Ighalo. The former Nigeria striker, who played on loan at Manchester United in 2020, leads the goal scoring standings in the Saudi Professional League with 18 goals so far this season.

He also has seven goals in the continental tournament —- two more in the final series will move him ahead of Edmilson Junior of Qatar Al-Duhail. Al-Hilal thrashed Al-Duhail 7-0 in February’s semifinals.

Urawa played its semifinal against Jeonbuk Motors of South Korea last August in what has been an elongated tournament. This edition started 14 months ago, with the delay resulting from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) transitioning to a calendar that mirrors the European competition.

Since Urawa’s last Asian Champions League game, Ricardo Rodriguez has been replaced as head coach by Maciej Skorza of Poland. Urawa is currently in fourth place in Japan’s top tier, and Al-Hilal is in fourth spot in the Saudi domestic league.

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Mbappe's Golden-boy Image Takes A Hit Amid Negative Headlines

Mbappe in action for France last month - AFP
Mbappe in action for France last month - AFP
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Mbappe's Golden-boy Image Takes A Hit Amid Negative Headlines

Mbappe in action for France last month - AFP
Mbappe in action for France last month - AFP

Kylian Mbappe is hoping his recent move to Real Madrid will take his already glittering career on the pitch to new heights, but the French superstar has become embroiled in off-field difficulties in recent months.

In an ideal world, the 25-year-old former Paris Saint-Germain striker would have been able to focus fully on settling in Madrid after he moved to the Spanish capital on a five-year deal during the summer just finished.

Instead, as well as being hampered by fitness problems, Mbappe has been locked in a bitter financial dispute with his old club and is now cited as the suspect in a rape investigation according to reports in Sweden, according to AFP.

Mbappe has dismissed those reports as "fake news" and is hoping to win his battle with PSG over what he claims amounts to 55 million euros ($60m) in unpaid wages and bonuses from last season.

Nevertheless, the negative headlines are a blow to the player's image and remove some of the aura around a young man who has become an icon in his home country and is a global sporting superstar.

When Mbappe emerged as a teenager at Monaco almost a decade ago, he stood out because of his precocious talent but also thanks to his remarkable communication skills.

Rather than being fazed by the media spotlight, Mbappe was clearly at ease in front of the cameras and spoke with the maturity and assurance of someone considerably older.

He was a World Cup winner at 19 and went on to become the all-time top scorer at PSG, the local club of the boy from Bondy in the Paris suburbs.

In March 2023, a few months after scoring a stunning hat-trick in France's World Cup final defeat by Lionel Messi's Argentina, he was named captain of the national team by coach Didier Deschamps.

That seemed a natural choice given his status in the team and in the country in general, but his position as skipper meant the decision to rest him for France's UEFA Nations League matches this month was controversial.

Mbappe had picked up a thigh injury in late September, a minor problem but one that suggested giving him a break would be beneficial in the long run.

"We need to put the player's interests first, without putting him into difficulty," Deschamps said of that decision, referring to Mbappe's relationship with his new club.

But as France's sporting press debated whether Mbappe's temporary absence from the squad was justified or a sign of a lack of commitment to the French cause, the player himself travelled to Stockholm for a short break with members of his entourage.

Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen, and public broadcaster SVT, have since reported that he is under investigation for rape, after an alleged incident in a hotel on October 10.

A Swedish prosecutor confirmed on Tuesday that a rape investigation had been opened but did not mention Mbappe's name.

Meanwhile Mbappe, whose career is managed by his mother Fayza Lamari, has taken his financial row with PSG to a French league committee.

He is trying to recover 55 million euros comprised of several months' unpaid wages and a signing-on fee, money PSG claimed he agreed to waive if he departed for free at the end of last season.

Mbappe even intimated on Monday that there was a link between the rape report and the wrangle with his old team, where he spent seven years.

"It's becoming so predictable, on the eve of the hearing, as if by chance," he wrote on X on Monday.

His unhappy divorce from PSG, which saw him left out of the team on numerous occasions in the second half of last season after he announced his intention to leave, surely contributed to a disappointing European Championship with France.

Mbappe suffered a broken nose in France's opening game at Euro 2024 in June and only scored one goal, a penalty in a group-stage draw with Poland, before Les Bleus lost in the semi-finals.

He looked some way short of peak physical form and is taking his time to settle in Madrid, even if he has seven goals in his first 11 appearances.

One recent moment seemed to capture the change in attitude towards Mbappe in his home country, as he was loudly booed by Lille supporters when introduced as a substitute for Real in a Champions League game earlier this month.

Such a welcome for an opposition player may not be unusual, but it contrasted sharply with the acclaim with which he was received around France in the aftermath of the last World Cup.