'Al-Hilal are bigger than Real Madrid' - a trip to Saudi for Derby Weekend | OneFootball

“If you say that again I’m going to be angry with you,” Youssef says with a smile.

“Al Hilal are much bigger than Real Madrid.”

I’ve travelled from Europe to join the thousands of Saudi Arabian fans for the Roshn Pro League’s Derby Weekend, where twice a year the fixtures are such that each team plays their rival over a 72-hour period.

Other sports have tried such a venture - in British Rugby League their ‘Magic Weekend’ was an annual event around 15 years ago - but this is the first time I can recall an entire football division arranging its calendar this way.

It’s an attempt by the marketing people behind the Saudi Pro League to promote this burgeoning division in the desert.

If you’re outside the Middle East and follow football in any way, you’ll have noticed the emergence of names like Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr and Al-Ittihad over the past two-and-a-half years.

Most of that buzz can be tracked back to December 30, 2022 when, in the afterglow of the World Cup in Qatar, the Saudi Pro League outdid their neighbours on the Arabian peninsula and persuaded Cristiano Ronaldo to join their newly-minted league and become the world’s highest-paid athlete.

The Ballon d’Or winner swapped Manchester for the Middle East, downpours for Diriyah and Ancoats for Al-Nassr as a new frontier opened up in the game.

It started a revolution in Saudi football as the likes of Neymar, Karim Benzema and Roberto Firmino all followed Ronaldo in moving to the Saudi Pro League.

Still though, even after dozens of big names joined clubs all over the country, it’s Ronaldo who is the biggest draw for fans of every club.

“Ronaldo is the player that makes our league known across the world,” Abdusalam Al-Hatani, an Al-Hilal fan, told me before their game against Al-Nassr.

“We don’t like that he plays for Al-Nassr, but we like that he is here.”

I’m speaking to Abdusalam and some of his friends outside the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh ahead of their derby match.

It’s a new indoor, 27-000 capacity stadium that has so far hosted everything from football to boxing.

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Outside the ground there are two fan parks - one for Hilal supporters and one for Nassr - with the usual attractions you would see outside most events all over the world.

There’s music blasting, ice cream and falafel trucks, an area to play EA Sports FC, as well a giant screen showing the highlights from both teams’ most recent games.

Men and women mix freely as supporters stream in with still three hours to go before kick off.

To get an idea of what these clubs mean to their fans, I speak to a number of people who, without exception, are friendly, hospitable and answer my questions in the best ways they possibly can.

Youssef, the man dissing Real Madrid earlier, is in his 60s and wears a traditional Saudi thawb - the long, loose-fitting robe that covers the body. There is however, nothing traditional about Youssef’s thawb which, instead of the usual white, is blue and has the Hilal club crest emblazoned on the left breast.

As I enter the fan park, the only non-Saudi here at this point, he strides towards me with a beaming smile and asks “where are you from?”.

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“I’m from England,” I reply, to which he responds with “do you support Manchester United? Or Arsenal? Or Liverpool?”.

“Oxford United" is met with a predictable blank stare.

Still though, Youssef is eager to give me the lowdown on his beloved club and his fanatical support for the team.

“This is my 233rd game coming to watch Al-Hilal. I’ve travelled 1,300 miles to be here from Neom,” he says.

Before I can ask a follow-up question, he tells me what this derby game against Riyadh’s other giant, Al-Nassr means locally.

“This is the biggest game of our season. At the start of the season, we always look to see when we’re playing Al-Nassr first,” he says.

Sami Al-Hamdan, a Nassr supporter in his early 20s agrees: “Every season I love this game. Hilal may have more trophies but I think we have the better team and the best fans.”

I put Sami’s hypothesis to the test about an hour before kick off as I enter the press box for the capital derby.

Even without the social lubricant of alcohol - the sale of which is banned in the country - both sets of fans are extraordinary loud, despite nothing happening on the pitch for at least another 60 minutes.

To the left of me the away fans of Nassr are almost all wearing yellow and unfurl a banner that reads, in English, ‘NASSR ARMY DANGER ZONE’.

Drums pound and chants howl and Nassr supporters go back-and-forth with their rivals on the opposite side of this cacophonous indoor stadium.

Hilal fans, all in blue and white, wave flags that read ‘Blue Wall’, ‘Blue Power’ and ‘Passion, Devotion’.

The noise somehow rises as kick off arrives, with Sadio Mané, Jhon Duran, Rúben Neves, Aleksandr Mitrović and Cristiano Ronaldo all starting.

The first half is a tight, tactical affair but is blown wide open right before the break as Ali Alhassan nets a genuinely world class opener for Nassr - curling one into the top corner from 25 yards out.

As Hilal push for an equaliser, space opens up and Ronaldo shows the same goalscoring prowess he's demonstrated for two decades.

The Portuguese legend bags Nassr's second after the break with a bundled effort and then puts the result beyond doubt with a late penalty.

The Nassr support roar 'siiiuuuuu' in unison as Ronaldo and co put a huge dent in Hilal's title charge, but for fans of the Blue Wave, their main focus seems not to be on defeat to their local rivals but on Hilal's participation in this summer's revamped Club World Cup.

The Riyadh giants have been drawn in Group H alongside Pachuca of Mexico, Austrian outfit Red Bull Salzburg and, the biggest of them all, Real Madrid.

That match against Los Blancos, on June 18, is the one all the fans I spoke to are eagerly awaiting.

“We’re really looking forward to the Club World Cup," Ahmed Al-Saleh, a teenager in a Hilal shirt, tells me.

"We can’t wait to see Al-Hilal become a name across the globe."

Youssef agrees that the game against Carlo Ancelotti's men in Miami can become a springboard for his club and Saudi football as a whole.

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"With the Club World Cup I’m sure that millions more people will know our name," he says.

"We will become a focus for people all over the world. Our club badge will become a symbol that everyone in football knows. Our league will become something that everyone knows."

But does he really think his team stand a chance against the reigning European champions?

"Of course," he says with another broad grin. "We are much bigger than them".

📸 Yasser Bakhsh - 2025 Getty Images