Al-Hilal and Al-Nasser clash in Saudi’s biggest game — and Argentina’s

The biggest game in Argentina this week is not in Buenos Aires or Cordoba but Riyadh. Al-Nassr against Al-Hilal is always a tasty encounter and one of the fiercest rivalries in Asian football, but their King’s Cup quarter-final on Monday should be almost as eagerly awaited in South America as in Saudi Arabia.

Both teams, who have won 26 domestic championships and 30 King’s Cups between them, have recently appointed Argentine coaches who know a thing or two about fierce rivalries. Al-Hilal recruited Ramon Diaz on Feb.14 and were rewarded with a 5-0 thrashing of Al-Shabab, another neighbor, on Thursday that kept alive the champions’ faint title hopes. The 62-year-old is a River Plate legend with two spells at the club as a player and as a coach. 

On the opposite side of Riyadh is Miguel Angel Rosso who, this time last year, was in charge of River’s bitter Buenos Aires rivals Boca Juniors. These two coaches know what it is like to be in the middle of one of the most frenzied derby atmospheres in world football, but there is plenty riding on Monday’s game. 

This will be the ninth meeting between the two tacticians, and in the past Diaz has had the upper hand with four wins and just two defeats. The first clash was back in 1996 when many of their current players were not even born. Diaz won the 1996 Copa Libertadores with River Plate and defeated Rosso, then in charge of Universidad de Chile, in the semifinal. The subsequent six clashes have all taken place in Argentina, the last of which were in the 2013-14 season. 

For Diaz, it is a great opportunity to build on a great start. To knock Al-Nassr out of the King’s Cup would really get the fans, some of whom have expressed doubts about the reappointment of the man who was