June 22 – On the same night that their national team were qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Gold Cup, Saudi Arabia’s top club side Al Hilal drew 0-0 with Red Bull Salzburg in Group H to keep their chances of progress to the knockout phase of the Club World Cup alive.
Backed by a partisan crowd in the American capital, Al Hilal maintained the elan of their 1-1 draw against Real Madrid and played Red Bull Salzburg without restraint. Full backs Renan Lodi and Joao Cancelo provided danger from the wings with their overlapping and the Riyadh-based outfit controlled the first half, but lacked incisiveness and precision in the final third. They had ten attempts but just one on goal. Restricted to defending, Red Bull did enjoy the best opportunity of the half when Karim Onisiwo stabbed the ball at goal in the tenth minute.
The second half continued in the same vain. Al Hilal had the attacking intent but Red Bull enjoyed a major double chance with substitute John Melberg’s close-range finish kept out by Yassine Bounou and Nene Dorgeles’s rebound cleared off the line. In the 57th minute, Malcolm cut inside, but his curler flew past the bottom left corner.
In the searing heat, the game became more stretched and there for the taking, but neither side found the breakthrough despite late attempts from both Salem Al Dawsari and Yorbe Vertessen, leading to the fifth goalless draw of the tournaments. “We played a really good game,” commented Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. “We didn’t score. We did a lot of good things. We defended and created, but a goal was missing.”
In third place, Al Hilal have two points from two matches while Salzburg move to four points. In Group H’s other match, ten-man Real Madrid defeated Mexico’s Pachuca 3-1 with goals from Jude Belingham, Arda Guler and Frederico Valverde. The match however was overshadowed by the alleged racial abuse of Antonio Rudiger. The German defender alerted referee Ramon Abatti who enacted FIFA no racism gesture. Pachuca’s captain Gustavo Cabral however denied he had abused Rudiger.
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