5 months ago
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Amid the hoopla surrounding the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India, it got lost that Asia’s most successful football club, Al-Hilal, landed in Mumbai on Saturday for an AFC Champions League (ACL) game against Indian Super League (ISL) Shield Winners, Mumbai City FC, on Monday. The Saudi Pro League leaders, Al-Hilal, have won the Champions League — Asia’s biggest club football competition — a record four times.
The Al-Za’eem’s team roster includes some of the biggest names in world football including Brazil superstar Neymar, who is currently out of action due to a ligament injury, Ruben Neves, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Malcolm among others. Most importantly the club landed all of these superstars in 2023 in between the football revolution that Saudi Arabia has launched.
Naturally, this has made Al-Hilal arguably one of the best sides in the world and Mumbai faced the brunt in their first leg of the Group D match when they suffered a 6-0 loss at the King Fahd International Stadium last month.
Mumbai conceded an early goal in the away game in the fifth minute but the Saudi club had to work hard for their next one. The second goal came in the 67th minute after which the floodgates opened. Under intense pressure from the Al-Hilal, the Islanders lost their focus after an hour in the game.
️ “Jorge Jesus” and “Malcom” spoke to media; ahead of tomorrow’s #ACL match against “Mumbai City”..#AlHilal #MUMvHIL ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/l6rPaOvjUc
— AlHilal Saudi Club (@Alhilal_EN) November 5, 2023
For the club and India’s No 1 left-back, Akash Mishra, it was a chastening yet learning experience where the Indian club was let down by “silly mistakes” but emerged as a better team.
“It was a big margin (of loss), 6-0. I think most of the fans in India would have slept after watching the first half. When they saw the result, 6-0, in the morning, they started tweeting and messaging. I feel that until 65-70 minutes, we had control and we also created chances, but we weren’t able to score. We are ourselves to blame. We took more risks later and ended up making silly mistakes,” he told Firstpost.
“We realised that at the Champions League level, you can’t make those mistakes. You make a mistake at the half line and that ball is next in your goal, so we have to learn that we can’t make silly mistakes. All goals we conceded were the result of our own mistakes. We have watched it and we will definitely learn from that.”
With Mumbai now set for another showdown with Al-Hilal at the DY Patil Sports Stadium in Navi Mumbai, Mishra and the club are looking forward to putting their best foot forward at home.
“Now we play them in Mumbai. We are going to represent Indian football and Mumbai, there will be fans, so we are ready and we will try to give our best.”
This time, tomorrow
The DY Patil Sports Stadium awaits #MUMvHIL #IslandersInAsia #ACL #MumbaiCity #AamchiCity pic.twitter.com/ycAghAM3kP
— Mumbai City FC (@MumbaiCityFC) November 5, 2023
Personally for the 21-year-old, the Al-Hilal game was a lesson in the journey that Indian football still has to make. The result also led to introspection and Mishra is confident for a better game.
“You get an experience where you play against some of the players who are such big names. Some of them have joined this year from the Premier League. In ISL you don’t get punished for small mistakes at times, but at the big stage, you need fast thinking. You need to do a lot of defensive work off the ball. These are small things but we need to focus on them. We watched the game again and took feedback from coaches and players. On 6 (November) we will try to put in a good performance,” he signed off.
The match will start at 7.30 PM IST and will be telecast live on Sports18 TV. LIVE streaming will be available on FanCode.
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