Sunday, December 1, 2013

1 December 2004 - "Stoppage Time" Is A Bit Midleading

On 1 December 2004, Al-Ittihad Jeddah overcame a first-leg deficit to win the first of two consecutive AFC Champions League trophies.

Previously, their best performance had been reaching the quarterfinals in 2000-01, when the tournament was still named the Asian Club Championship. But in 2004, they advanced all the way to the final, where they faced South Korean side Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma, who won the tournament in 1995 and finished as runners-up in 1997.

In the first leg, played in Saudi Arabia on 24 November, Seongnam won 1-3. The teams then met in South Korea for the second leg on 1 December. There, the visitors took the lead with a 27th-minute goal from center back Redha Tukar, who had scored the team's only goal in the earlier game. Striker Hamzah Idris added a second in first-half stoppage time to put the visitors up 0-2.

Ittihad kept the pressure up in the second half, getting a brace from Mohammed Noor (55', 78') and a final goal from Manaf Abushgeer (90+5') to extend the final margin to 0-5 and the aggregate score to 6-3. They repeated as champions the following year, beating the UAE's Al Ain 5-3 on aggregate, while Seongnam returned to the final in 2010, winning it over Iran's Zob Ahan.




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