Al Ahli Youth suffered a bizarre 2-4 loss to Qatari Al Sadd in Doha, despite initially taking the lead. On Tuesday evening, the two teams met at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium for the sixth round of the West group in the AFC Champions League Elite. Al Ahli Youth took the lead first through Federico Cartabisa in the 47th minute, before Yahya Al Ghassani extended the score from a penalty in the 70th minute, making it seem the team was on its way to a valuable away victory. However, Al Sadd brought the match back to square one with a goal from Rafa Míchia in the 75th minute, before the complexion of the game completely changed in stoppage time. Tarik Salman scored the equalizer in the 90+5 minute, then Míchia returned to score two consecutive goals in the 90+11 and 90+13 minutes, completing a dramatic comeback that turned the result on its head. With this loss, Al Ahli Youth's points tally froze at 10, while Al Sadd increased its tally to 5 points, keeping the group race open before the next round of matches. The 'Knights' are preparing for two heavyweight matches against Al Hilal and Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia next February in an attempt to compensate for this loss and get back to positive results. The defeat came as a shock to Al Ahli Youth fans, given the team's strong performance throughout the match before losing focus in the crucial moments and conceding three goals in less than ten minutes.
