A six-goal rollercoaster in Jeddah
Three-nil down on 41 minutes, level by 90+1. That was the wild arc of a night that reminded everyone why the Saudi Pro League is no longer just a sideshow. Under the lights at Alinma Stadium in Jeddah on September 19, 2025, Al-Ahli vs Al-Hilal delivered edge-of-the-seat drama from whistle to whistle and finished 3-3, a scoreline that barely captures the emotional swing of it all.
Al-Hilal hit first and hit hard. The visitors controlled the opening quarter-hour with sharp passing and clever movement down the left. French defender Theo Hernández timed his run perfectly and struck in the 12th minute, a crisp finish that quieted the home crowd and set the tone. The pressure didn’t ease. Brazilian winger Malcom, picking up pockets between the lines, doubled the lead in the 24th minute and then struck again in the 41st, punishing a defense that kept getting dragged out of shape. At 0-3 by halftime, it looked like a rout in the making.
But football is about moments and momentum. When Al-Ahli emerged after the break, the body language changed. They pushed higher, moved the ball quicker into wide areas, and started isolating defenders in one-on-ones. Riyad Mahrez, who had been probing without reward in the first half, took more risks with his passing angles and cutbacks. Enzo Millot drove them forward with tempo, carrying the ball through midfield and linking play instead of settling for safe options.
Still, it took patience. For 30 second-half minutes Al-Hilal kept their shape, dropped into a lower block when needed, and looked content to manage the game. Their plan was clear: absorb, break, and use the pace of their front line to kill the contest on the counter. Darwin Núñez led that part of the operation, repeatedly stretching Al-Ahli’s back line and forcing defenders into recovery sprints. The hosts kept coming, though, and the contest tilted.
The switch flipped in the 78th minute. Ivan Toney, quiet for long spells as he fought for scraps between two centre-backs, finally got the touch he wanted. His finish trimmed the deficit to 1-3 and injected belief into a stadium that had been waiting for a lifeline. From that moment, every second ball seemed to fall to green shirts, every duel felt like a 50-50 Al-Ahli had to win.
Al-Hilal, so fluent early on, started to feel the weight of the clock and the noise. Toney struck again in the 87th, a striker’s goal born of timing and composure. Now it was 2-3, and the touchline became a blur of instructions and substitutions. Al-Ahli rolled the dice with fresh legs—Feras Al-Brikan brought energy up top, Abdulelah Al Khaibari offered bite in midfield—and committed bodies forward. Al-Hilal responded with their own changes to steady the game and reclaim a foothold.
Stoppage time delivered the punchline. In the 90th minute plus one, Merih Demiral climbed when it mattered and forced the equalizer over the line from a set-piece situation that Al-Hilal just couldn’t fully clear. The place erupted. What had looked like damage limitation at halftime became a salvage mission completed with seconds to spare.
There were individual subplots everywhere. Malcom’s first-half brace wasn’t just about finishing; his movement kept dragging markers into uncomfortable areas and opened lanes for overlapping runs. Hernández’s opener summed up Al-Hilal’s early control—decisive, well-timed, clinical. On the other side, Mahrez was the metronome for Al-Ahli’s better spells, threading passes into crowded channels and demanding the ball in tight spaces. Millot gave the attack a vertical pulse, turning defensive wins into quick transitions.
Both goalkeepers faced heavy traffic in the chaos of the final half-hour, and Édouard Mendy produced a couple of important stops as the pressure cranked up and legs tired. There were blocks on the line, hurried clearances, and a few scrambles that will look just as frantic on replay as they did in real time. It was breathless, but not reckless—more like the right kind of chaos you get when two heavyweight squads refuse to fold.
The context matters here. This was Round 3 of the 2025–26 season, with both teams coming in unbeaten and carrying identical records—one win, two draws, no losses, five points from their opening fixtures. They leave with their streaks intact and another point each, but the journey to those points couldn’t have been more different. Al-Hilal will feel they let two slip away. Al-Ahli will treat it like a win without the table saying so.
What changed after halftime—and what it means
So what turned a 0-3 halftime deficit into a 3-3 rescue act? Start with field position. Al-Ahli pushed their back line closer to midfield, squeezed the space where Malcom had thrived, and trusted Demiral to attack aerial balls early. That higher platform let their wide men receive in better areas and forced Al-Hilal to defend facing their own goal more often. When the ball moved wide, the hosts created overloads and swung play quickly rather than dwelling on the first cross.
Then came the duels. In the first half, Al-Hilal won most second balls; after the interval, Al-Ahli flipped that pattern. Winning those scraps meant sustained pressure rather than one-offs. Toney became a focal point instead of a bystander, pinning defenders and contesting every long pass. When he dropped in, runners went beyond him; when he stayed high, the defense had to follow.
Set pieces were the other thread. Even before Demiral’s stoppage-time equalizer, dead-ball routines kept Al-Hilal under strain. Corners were targeted to the penalty spot and beyond, forcing a retreating back line to face deliveries they couldn’t easily attack. Al-Hilal dealt with most of them, but that constant traffic added fatigue and set the stage for the late damage.
Credit both benches for reading the flow and using changes to shift the temperature. Al-Ahli’s substitutions added legs and urgency in the press. Feras Al-Brikan chased everything and made center-backs turn. Abdulelah Al Khaibari snapped into tackles and kept the ball moving one and two touches. Al-Hilal, protecting a lead, tried to reassert control with fresh energy and structure, but the tide had turned enough that the game asked them to survive rather than dictate.
From a tactical lens, Al-Hilal’s blueprint worked brilliantly for 45 minutes: stretch the pitch, isolate defenders, and let Malcom and Hernández run at a back line unsure of its reference points. The second half asked a different question—could they live without the ball for long spells and still threaten enough to keep Al-Ahli honest? For a time, yes. Núñez gave them a release valve and looked dangerous in transition. But when the distances between Al-Hilal’s lines grew and the midfield stopped getting to the first contact, the hosts took control of the zones that decide late-game outcomes.
The mental side matters, too. At 0-3, some teams shut down. Al-Ahli did the opposite. The body language from Mahrez and Millot—demanding the ball, pointing, speeding up restarts—was contagious. Toney’s first goal did more than change the score; it changed the mood. From then on, every Al-Hilal clearance felt temporary.
What does it mean for the table? In simple terms, both clubs remain unbeaten and add one more point to keep pace near the top in the early going. In bigger-picture terms, it reinforces how thin the margins are at the sharp end of this league. A commanding half doesn’t guarantee control of the next one, not when squads are this deep and the crowd can turn a flicker into a flame.
It also underlines why the Saudi Pro League has become must-watch. Since the 2023 influx of talent, the gap between ambition and execution has narrowed fast. This game had the hallmarks of top-tier football: overlapping full-backs, wide rotations, coordinated pressing, and a shift in risk profile when game state demanded it. It had star power but also the grit you need when patterns break down and it becomes about winning your patch of grass.
There were no major VAR dramas to overshadow the football, and the officiating let the game breathe while stepping in when needed. The rhythm was good, even with the stoppages you expect in a six-goal match. If anything, the night showed how important control of tempo is in this league—go too passive, and you invite waves you can’t always ride out.
For Al-Hilal, the takeaways are bittersweet. They’ll be thrilled with how incisive they looked in the first half and with Malcom’s form, but they’ll revisit their late-game management and defensive spacing under sustained pressure. For Al-Ahli, the tape will show shaky first-half cover and tracking, followed by the kind of front-foot football that can tilt a season. Toney’s timing, Demiral’s leadership in both boxes, and Mahrez’s creativity offer a blueprint they can carry into tougher stretches of the calendar.
As for the crowd, they’ll remember the feeling. You could sense the shift after 1-3—the volume, the urgency, the belief pouring off the stands. Games like this build identity. They also set the tone for the rivalry’s next chapter. When these two meet again, both will remember how quickly control can swing and how little room there is for comfort.
Round 3 ends with both clubs exactly where they started on the loss column—untouched. The difference is psychological. Al-Hilal have a reminder that dominance has to be sustained. Al-Ahli have proof that they can turn a lost cause into a point with the right mix of structure and daring. File it under early-season classics, and expect the title race to feel tighter after a night that gave everyone something to talk about.