JEDDAH: The Saudi Professional League seemed to never run out of surprises. Yesterday in round six, Al-Raid produced a gem of a game to crush Al-Shabab 4-1 in a stunning reversal in Riyadh.
As expected favorites Al-Ittihad, Al-Nasr, Al-Hilal and Al-Ittifaq secured the game’s three points against their opponents. Al-Ahli and Al-Wehda battled to a 0-0 draw at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here. League leader Ittihad did keep the three points gap between it and Hilal but it had to labor against Abha, coming back from one goal down in a 2-1 victory.
Nasr too experienced queasy moments before beating Al-Watani of Tabuk 1-0, Hilal emerged 2-1 winner over Al-Hazem in Al-Rass and Ittifaq disposed of Najran 2-0.
Shabab had been widely tipped to easily collect the full points. Instead, Al-Raid handed Shabab a humiliating defeat.
With the win Al-Raid leapfrogged to the ninth position with six points. Shabab dropped to the seventh position with nine points. Al-Hazem was first to score in the second minute when Muhammad Rubaiz converted a penalty kick. Muhammad Shalhoub equalized for Hilal in the 27th minute with a penalty kick. Yaser Al-Qahtani scored the winning goal in the 59th minute giving Hilal 16 points in second place. Ittifaq found no difficulty defeating Najran thanks to goals from Abdul Rahman Al-Qahtani in the 35th minute and Saleh Basheer in the 55th minute.
Al-Watani had Nasr holding its breath until the 75th minute when Saad Al-Harthi scored the only goal for Nasr ending the match 1-0. Nasr remained in third position with 14 points, two points adrift of second-ranked Hilal and five of Ittihad .
Ittihad had a hard time putting away Abha at its home field. After ending the first half 0-0, Khaled Al-Zuaili of Abha came along in the 53rd minute and scored the first goal. Ittihad pushed hard searching for the equalizer. Sultan Al-Namri took advantage of a ball that rebounded off the post to score in the 72nd minute. Five minutes later, Naif Hazazi sealed the win for Ittihad on a fine header. The absence of star striker Malek Muaz again told heavily on Ahli as it failed to stop the points leak in what is shaping up as an uphill campaign.
