Al -Rayyan will meet Al -Ahly tomorrow / Sunday / in the first semi -finals of the fifty -third edition of the 2025 Emir Cup, provided that the same round will be completed by facing Al -Gharafa and Umm Salal / Monday /.
The four teams are competing to reach the final match of the most expensive tournament in the Qatari football, scheduled for the 24th of this month at the Khalifa International Stadium, in an effort to win the title that will give the owner of a direct seat in the next edition of the AFC Champions League 2025-2026.
The first confrontation witnessed by the Jassim bin Hamad Stadium, starting from seven in the evening, has a lot of historical and great privacy, because Al -Ahly and Al -Rayyan were the first final ends of the tournament in its first edition in 1973 when Al -Ahly, who is the oldest club in Qatar, crowned the first title at the time by outperforming its opponent with a result that is the largest in the history of the final matches with six goals for a goal.
Al -Ahly is looking for the fifth title in its history after it had previously won the title on four occasions, unlike seeking to end a long estrangement with the cup, as the last title was in 1992, while the team played the final match for the last time in 2003 when it lost to the dam.
Al -Ahly’s career in the current version was not easy, as Qatar and the summer of the last version met in the final round and won it with a goal without a response after the extension after the negative tie in the original time, then he faced Al -Shahaniya in the quarter -finals and won with difficulty also with two goals for one after an additional time after the end of the original time in a tie with a goal.
The ambition of the Croatian coach, Igor Peskan, appears to be great this season, after finishing the Qatari League/ Stars League in fourth place for the first time in nearly twenty years, to appear in the Qatar Cup, which he left from the semi -finals after losing to Al -Sadd.
Al -Ahly is counting on a homogeneous group of players, such as Ivorian Edrissa Dumbia and the distinguished Moroccan Idris Fattouhi, and the French attackers Omar Siko and Spanish Erk Spaceto, but the most effective paper will be with the return of his first German star, Julian Draxler, who was absent from the quarter -finals of the injury, which will constitute a great technical push in light of a very sophisticated level presented by the player in the current season, after he was one of the most prominent Reasons for reaching the fourth place in the league.
On the other side, Al -Rayyan seeks to reach the nineteenth final in its history, in search of his seventh title, after he won the cup six times, the last of which was 12 years ago and specifically in 2013.
Al -Rayyan has historically suffered from a misfortune in the final match of the precious championship, after the final ran 18 times during which he lost the title in twelve occasions, to be the most team of the cup.
Al -Rayyan reached the quarter -finals with difficulty after he turned his delay against the second -class Lusail team to win four goals to the two, to hit a big date with Al -Duhail in a confrontation described as an early final.
The Portuguese coach, Artur George, presented a very sophisticated level in the face of Al -Duhail, especially in the second half, after he found himself an hour after the title late with two goals without a response, to return from afar and adjust the score 2-2 and lead the match to additional times and then to penalty shootouts to come out as a winner 5-4.
Al -Rayyan is counting on high -caliber stars led by one of the most prominent foreign professional players in Qatari football, the Brazilian Roger Gidish, the league’s top scorer with 21 goals, which was the godfather of Rayyan’s return against Al -Duhail by scripting his team’s goals, so that his shares in the competition for the title of best player in the season, without losing the stardom of other players such as the Egyptian Mahmoud Hassan / Treziga / and the Uruguayan striker Adam Parro , And Belgian midfielder, Julian Dossart.
Al -Rayyan excels in the last 15 confrontations, where he won nine occasions against Al -Ahly’s victory in four games, the two teams tied twice before, and Al -Rayyan scored during these confrontations 27 goals and Al -Ahly scored 19 goals.
The second semi -final confrontation of the Prince Cup 2025, which brings together Al Gharafa with Umm Salal and is held at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium at seven in the evening on Monday/, was very semi -final.
The confrontation (as the first semi -final) has historical privacy, as the two teams met in the final of the 2008 edition when Umm Salal then crowned its first and only title by beating Al -Gharafa 4-1 by a difference of penalty shootout after a tie in the original and additional time with two goals each.
Al -Gharafa has the seven titles, a full history of the championship, and he has a record number that has been steadfast for 27 years, as the only one who won the title on four consecutive occasions between 1995 and 1998 to retain the cup forever, surpassing the Arab who had won the title three times between 1978 to 1980.
The Portuguese coach, Pedro Martinez, wished the breath by ending a long time to move away from the title that he received for the last time in 2012, while the last final match played by Al -Gharafa in 2022 when he lost to Al -Duhail.
The situation appears completely different for the Gharafa in the current version, where the great insistence on winning the title, after the creek in the first round exceeded 2-1, the team found itself in front of a very big challenge by facing the dam that won the cup with 19 occasion, and the owner of the league dualism and the Qatar Cup, but an exceptional appearance of the Gharafa gave him the victory by a penalty shootout 5-4 after a 2-2 tie in a match that the dam needed during its original time to return The last seconds score the equalizer, in a clear reference to the great force that the Gharafa was.
Al -Gharafa has effective papers that may help him to achieve his goal by competing for the title, such as Algerian star Yassin Ibrahim, the Spanish goal, and former Real Madrid star Josello alongside Tunisian Ferjani Sassi and the other Spanish Rodigo Moreno.
Al -Gharafa will be in need to crown the Prince Cup title in order to reserve a direct seat in the AFC Champions League next season, because the leaving the league champion and Al -Dahil Al -Wasif, he cut the opportunity to participate continental through the attachment in the event that one of them wins the Prince Cup title as the third league, so the crowning is the only way for him for that participation.
It is worth noting that the Qatari club’s share of participating in the elite league next season is two direct and one seats in the attachment (the preliminary round), where the first direct seat was seized as a champion of the league, and the Prince Cup champion will receive the second direct seat, while Al -Duhail won the attachment seat as descriptive of the league, according to the officially approved distribution by the Qatari Federation.
On the opposite side, Umm Salal’s arrival formed to the semi -finals of the Prince Cup, an unexpected surprise, given that the team occupied the penultimate position of the league, and was forced to play the match against Al -Markhiya, the second division, to ensure the first -class staying after winning with two goals.
Umm Salal entered the championship competitions without pressure, to exceed the memory in the final price and four goals to a goal, before he excluded the north who was a candidate to reach away in the competition, and won it by a difference of penalty shootout 3 – 2 after a tie in the original and additional time with a goal.
It depends on Umm Salal, who is led by French coach Patrice Pommel, on distinguished players, such as the Croatian striker Antonio Minsi, the Dutch Kenji Khoel, and the Moroccan Osama Tanan.
The two teams met in the championship three times before, Al -Gharafa won two occasions, Umm Salal Marra won, and Al -Gharafa scored 7 Akdar and Umm Salal scored 5 goals.