Under the "miracle" of coach Simone Inzaghi - who just brought Inter Milan to the final of the 2024 - 2025 Champions League, the Al Hilal stars are making a strong comeback. From a weak and easily defeated team in Saudi Arabia, Al Hilal showed off their beautiful attacking style at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™. More notably, they held Salzburg and Real Madrid to a draw and defeated the strong candidate for the championship title, Man City, to become the only Asian representative in the quarter-finals.
Therefore, when meeting Fluminense, the supercomputer Opta also rated Al Hilal to advance with a winning rate in 90 minutes of up to 65%. Meanwhile, this rate of Fluminense only stopped at 25.6%, the remaining 24.4% is the possibility of the match going into extra time.
Coach Simone Inzaghi is bringing many changes to Al Hilal after just over 1 month in charge.
PHOTO: REUTERS
However, Fluminense also proved that their participation in the quarter-finals was not a stroke of luck. Led by veteran star Thiago Silva, the Brazilian representative still deployed a difficult defensive counter-attacking style of play. In the first half, Fluminense held the ball almost as well as Al Hilal (48%) and had 4 shots on target. The result also came to Fluminense in the 40th minute when Matheus Martinelli took full advantage of Joao Cancelo's mistake to open the scoring.
On the opposite side, Al Hilal took the initiative to attack after the opening whistle. Coach Simone Inzaghi launched the strongest lineup with full stars such as Ruben Neves, Malcom, Savic and even the striker who just scored a double against Man City, Marcos Leonardo. Al Hilal also dominated the ball, continuously firing at Fluminense's goal in the first half. Unfortunately, Al Hilal's shots were inaccurate and they had to end the match with Fluminense leading 1-0.
"Dark horse" Fluminense continues to bring surprises when leading Al Hilal after the first half.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Conceding a goal, Al Hilal made many adjustments in attack in the second half to find an equalizer. The Asian representative increased the speed of the match, using more high crosses than in the previous half. Without having to wait too long, in the 51st minute, Al Hilal found the equalizer 1-1. Marcos Leonardo was still the player who brought joy to coach Simone Inzaghi's team with a close-range shot after a classy wall by center-back Kalidou Koulibaly.
After the equalizer, Al Hilal continued to attack. However, their focus on pushing up the squad caused the Asian representative to fall into Fluminense's defensive counter-attack trap. In the 70th minute, Samuel Xavier made an assist for Hércules to shoot the ball with class, defeating goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, sealing a 2-1 victory for Fluminense.
Fluminense continues fairy tale in this year's tournament
PHOTO: REUTERS
Fluminense continued their fairytale run at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ by beating Al Hilal 2-1, becoming the first team to reach the semi-finals. Coach Renato Gaúcho's team will face the winner of the match between Chelsea and Palmeiras, which will take place at 8am on 5 July.
Watch FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ live and only in Vietnam on FPT Play, at http://fptplay.vn
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/fluminense-viet-tiep-chuyen-co-tich-danh-bai-al-hilal-vao-ban-ket-fifa-club-world-cup-18525070504195806.htm
Comment (0)