Custodian of Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah presented the glittering trophy to Ittihad captain Muhammad Nur. He also presented the team with gold medals, while the silver was given to Hilal players.
Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman received King Abdullah on his arrival at the stadium. Prince Sultan bin Fahd, president of the Presidency of Youth Welfare, was also present.
The season-ending finale at the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh had to be decided by penalty strikes after the two teams had played themselves to a standstill and a goalless stalemate after 120 minutes of action.
The match could have ended in the regulation 90 minutes, had Ittihad’s Nur not wasted a penalty in the 88th minute. For that miss extended play and the fans’ agony for another 30 minutes.
Ittihad dominated the run of play and had the majority of the exchanges. Though they wove some pleasing designs with their intricate passes, they foundered against a robust Hilal defense.
Also Hilal laid a clinical offside trap for the Ittihad strikers, who were repeatedly caught out of line thus rendering all the buildup toward the Hilal goal awaste.
Hilal rarely had a look-see at the Ittihad citadel and on the occasional counters, inevitably ran out of steam and ideas as they entered their opponent’s 25-yard line.
Though action was replete, the first half ended 0-0 with Ittihad holding the edge. But it was in the second session that the Jeddah outfit should have sealed the outcome in regulation time.
After a sustained period of domination, which saw the Ittihadis string a wave of attacks, Nur looked a gift horse in the mouth in the 88th minute.
All the hard work he had done to earn the strike from the spot was negated by the feeble, straight shot that was easily stopped by goalkeeper Hassan Otaibi.
Nur was quick to break through the Hilal offside trap to chase the through ball. But as he moved in dangerously, he was hacked down by a desperate Hilal defender and this earned the Jeddah side the penalty.
The only time Hilal looked really dangerous, though Ittihad goalkeeper Mabrouk Zaid was not tested on that occasion, was when Yasser Al-Qahtani was given space and the ball on the right flank.
But Al-Qahtani, showing initial speed, was tackled cleanly at the top of the box, and his half-hearted effort to win a penalty by diving into the rectangle was nixed by the referee in the 66th minute.
The match then was a near one-way traffic from that moment till Nur made a hash of the penalty. The contrasting emotions on the either side of the King Fahd International stadium said it all.
While on the one side the sea of blue erupted into a joyous ovation of the Otaibi save, the dumbstruck face of the crowd in yellow on the other side relayed the moment’s momentous drama.
Hilal played with a purpose in the remaining two minutes and pushed the match into extra time. The two sessions of extra periods of 15 minutes each failed to snap the deadlock and the match went to the deciding penalty shots. Hilal were more visible in the extra sessions as they effected moves on either flank. Though the wing play was clinical with Christian Wilhelmsson impressive, their efforts in front of the goal rarely raised a sweat from Zaid. Also, Ittihad, as the time wound down, players clustered around the goal to crowd off the Hilal threats.
The set of five penalties allowed Nur to make amends for his earlier lapse as he struck the crucial fifth for Ittihad after Ahmed Al-Feraid missed for Hilal.
The earlier four shots were on target for both the sides with Al-Qahtani, Issa Al-Mehyani, Young-Pyo Lee and Wilhelmsson striking true for Hilal, and Saud Kirairi, Abdelmalik Zuaya, Amine Chermiti and Rashid Raheeb scoring for Ittihad.
