JEDDAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz will attend the final match and hand over the trophy to the winner of the King's Cup football tournament Thursday night at King Abdullah Sports City stadium in Jeddah.
The match is set for 8:30 p.m. with Riyadh-based Al-Hilal aiming to win back-to-back titles against Al-Ahli of Jeddah having defeated Al-Nasr, another Riyadh-based club, in last year's final.
The championship that started in 1957 included only teams of the Western Region clubs and was won by Makkah’s team Al-Wehda.
The tournament format then was points system, where teams that had the most points qualified for a three-group league. The three leading teams, in addition to a team qualifying by draw, play knockout last-four matches. Central region teams started participating in the championship in 1961 with one of them, Al-Hilal, winning the cup. Two years after that, Eastern Province teams joined the competition, with Al-Ettifaq being the first of the region to win the trophy in 1968.
In 1976, the championship format was changed to knock-out, which is being followed to date. Since 2013, the tournament has been expanded to include all 153 clubs in the Kingdom.
Ahli and Jeddah's Al-Ittihad are the top two teams with the most number of cups won at 12 and 8 respectively, followed by Hilal at 7, Nasr at 6 and Al-Shabab at 3. Ettifaq and Wehda each have two titles.
King Salman to attend King's Cup final
King Salman to attend King's Cup final
Real Madrid handed shock home loss as Celta Vigo spring surprise
- Celta jumped from 14th to 10th while the defeat ended Real’s 100 percent home league record this season after six successive wins
MADRID: Real Madrid suffered a shock 2-0 loss and finished with nine men against Celta Vigo in LaLiga on Sunday after Williot Swedberg scored an audacious goal with his heel and a second in stoppage time to leave the hosts four points off leaders Barcelona.
Swedish substitute Swedberg cleverly diverted a cross from Bryan Zaragoza past Thibaut Courtois in the 53rd minute to put Celta ahead and had an easy finish three minutes into added time, going around the goalkeeper to wrap up the points.
Real’s cause was not helped by the 64th minute dismissal of Fran Garcia, who picked up two yellow cards in 60 seconds, but they laid siege to the visitors’ goal for the last 20 minutes as Celta went into a defensive shell to hold onto their advantage.
Real defender Alvaro Carreras was also dismissed for two cautions, his second coming in stoppage time at the end of the game as the home side’s frustrations boiled over.
It was a second clean sheet in 15 league games this season for Celta, whose keeper Ionut Radu made a first-half save from Jude Bellingham’s header and stopped a second-half free-kick whipped in by Kylian Mbappe.
Real stay on 36 points from 16 games as Celta celebrated a first win at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in 19 years, leaving the Galician club with 19 points.
“With the team they have and their quality, it’s difficult to match them, but we read the game well,” said Celta striker Borja Iglesias. “We had possession, we played in their half, we played a fantastic match.”
Celta jumped from 14th to 10th while the defeat ended Real’s 100 percent home league record this season after six successive wins.
Xabi Alonso’s stuttering Real team have now won only one of their last five league games as they await the midweek arrival of Manchester City in the Champions League.
Earlier on Sunday, Espanyol moved up to fifth as Roberto Fernandez’s first half penalty handed them a 1-0 home win over Rayo Vallecano as both sides finished with 10 men.
Elche’s Rafa Mir scored twice as they ran out 3-0 home winners over struggling Girona, while hosts Valencia and Sevilla remained in the bottom half of the table after a 1-1 draw.
