Domestic giants meet Bahrain’s Al Riffa in the AFC Cup West Zone final at Seeb Sports Stadium

Muscat: History beckons Oman’s Al Seeb Club when they lock horns with Bahrain’s Al Riffa in the 2022 AFC Cup West Zone final at the Seeb Sports Stadium in Muscat on Tuesday. The match kicks off at 7pm.

A win for Seeb, the reigning domestic league and His Majesty’s Cup champions, will create a history as they will become the first team from the Sultanate to reach the AFC Cup final in the current format.

Al Riffa are also in the same situation and are also one match away from reaching their first-ever AFC Cup final.

Seeb will hope to exploit the home conditions and backed by a large number of fans, they are hoping to write a new chapter in club football history of Oman. Riffa will bid to keep the West Zone title in Bahrain after Bahrain’s Muharraq Club won the 2021 edition.

It has been a dream journey for the hosts on their continental debut, delayed by one year from its original date, having been forced to withdraw from the 2021 edition due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions in Oman at the time.

Seeb defeated Syria’s Jableh SC 1-0 in the opening match. They recovered from the setback of losing 1-2 to three-time AFC Cup champions Kuwait SC in style with a 4-0 defeat of Lebanon’s Al Ansar to seal the top spot in Group A. The win guaranteed them a place in the West Zonal semifinal where they emerged 2-1 winners against Kuwait’s Al Arabi after 120 minutes.

Just like their upcoming opponents, Al Riffa had to bounce back from losing to Kuwaiti opposition in the group stage; their opening game ended with a 3-2 comeback for Al Arabia.

But two wins on the trot, 3-2 against Dhofar and 3-1 against Shabab Al Khalil, were enough for them to book the best runners-up ticket to the second West Zone semifinal. In the semis, they needed penalty shootouts to defeat domestic rivals East Riffa.

Seeb and Al Riffa have never met in the AFC Cup.

For Seeb, this will be their first encounter against a Bahraini side in their inaugural participation in the continental competition.

Clubs from Oman and Bahrain have met twice in the AFC Cup knockout stage; in the 2006 quarterfinals, Muharraq Club beat Al Nasr 3-2 in Oman then lost 0-1 at home but advanced to the semifinals on away goals, going on to reach the final which they lost to Jordan’s Al Faisaly. 

Two years later, Muharraq locked horns with Oman’s Al Nahda, and again progressed on away goals after losing 0-1 at home and winning 2-1 in Oman, reaching the final and winning their first AFC Cup title. No Omani club has ever won the AFC Cup, Seeb’s heroics this year already match the best-ever result in the competition, achieved by Al Nahda in 2008, while no team from Oman has reached the knockout stage since the introduction of the zonal system in 2017.

Bahraini clubs have historically fared relatively better than their Omani peers in the competition, although only Muharraq were more often than not the nation’s most successful representative, winning two titles and finishing second once.

Skipper Al Aswad is Al Riffa’s top scorer in the competition so far with three goals.

Two players share the top spot among Seeb scorers with two goals; central midfielder and captain Eid Al Farsi opened Seeb’s AFC Cup account before adding his second in the 4-0 demolition of Al Ansar. The other is striker Muhsen al Ghassani who scored a consolation goal in the 2-1 defeat to Kuwait SC before getting his side’s first in the 2-1 extra-time win in the West Zone semifinal against Al Arabi.