Archive July 1, 2025

Riyadh-based club Al Hilal and the Saudi Pro League (SPL) have made a habit of making international headlines in recent years, but almost exclusively it’s been for off-field matters involving money and player transfers.

Whether it was Brazilian superstar Neymar’s 90-million-euro ($98m) blockbuster signing in 2023 and subsequent departure 17 months later after playing just seven games, or their unsuccessful attempts to lure other big names like Mohamed Salah and Victor Osimhen, the club and league are never far from the headlines at this time of year as the summer transfer window kicks into gear.

And now, once again, the whole world is talking about Al Hilal – but for an entirely different reason.

For once, they’re talking about the football because Al Hilal has only gone and defeated Manchester City – a star-studded side that has won four of the past five English Premier League titles and a UEFA Champions League title two year ago – in the Round of 16 at the newly expanded FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) in the United States.

As far as world football’s elite clubs go, Pep Guardiola’s side sit right near the very top. But on this night in Orlando, now etched in Saudi football folklore, they were no match for Al Hilal; the thrilling, see-sawing encounter ending 4-3 after a simply remarkable 120 minutes of football that heralded the arrival of Middle East club football onto a global stage.

Al Hilal’s historic victory makes them the first Asian side to beat a European side in a FIFA tournament.

Al Hilal’s coach, Simone Inzaghi, who only joined the club a few weeks after guiding Inter Milan to the UEFA Champions League final in May, likened the challenge to climbing the world’s tallest mountain.

“The key to this result was the players, and the heart they put on the pitch tonight,” the 49-year-old Italian said.

“We had to do something extraordinary because we all know Manchester City, that team. We had to climb Mount Everest without oxygen and we made it. ”

Heroes across the park

Towards the end of the game, the Everest metaphor was apt because Al Hilal’s stars were completely exhausted; the hot and humid weather conditions, along with the enormity of the occasion, conspiring to sap almost every last ounce out of their being.

But they simply refused to give in or give up. Despite conceding three goals to City, goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was a brick wall between the sticks, making numerous heroic saves to keep Al Hilal in the contest during the first half.

Striker Marcos Leonardo could barely walk by the end of the game, but his iconic celebration of what proved to be the match-winning goal will be remembered by Al Hilal fans for a long time to come.

Key midfielders Ruben Neves and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic may as well have worn gladiator armour, such was their fight and determination, while unheralded Saudi players such as Nasser al-Dawsari and Moteb al-Harbi made a name for themselves on the sport’s biggest stage.

“All the players were exceptional in everything, in the possession phase, the non-possession phase,” Inzaghi continued.

“It is barely three weeks that we are together and you can see the level of application, they really put the effort in. As a coach clearly that is very satisfying.

“The lads delivered that performance, they have reached the quarterfinals. ”

Pre-match, few pundits gave Al Hilal more than a puncher’s chance of victory against the defending CWC champion Manchester City, who had a perfect 3-from-3 winning record in the group stage.

City, a super team known around the world, had multiple opportunities to win the match but failed to capitalise at key points late in the contest. Their stunning defeat to Al Hilal will likely be the subject of post-tournament revisionism that attempts to downplay the importance of the CWC to mega clubs at the end of a gruelling, 10-month 2024-25 campaign.

But what of Al Hilal? They, too, were at the end of a long, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign, finishing second in the SPL behind Al Ittihad and falling at the semifinal stage of the AFC Champions League Elite.

Like their City counterparts, when you include international football, many of Al Hilal’s stars had played more than 50 games this season and faced three taxing CWC fixtures in the intense heat of an US summer.

But they also came into this game devoid of three of their regular starting XI, including two of their most important attacking threats in Aleksandar Mitrovic and Salem Al-Dawsari.

Together, they combined for 55 goals and 25 assists in all competitions this past season, leaving an unbelievable void in attack; while Hassan al-Tambakti, a central defender who is the preferred partner of Kalidou Koulibaly in the heart of defence, was also sidelined after injuring his knee in training on the eve of the game.

It meant Neves, their best midfielder, was deployed in the heart of defence, forcing other reshuffles across the pitch.

Against a stacked Manchester City side that had replenished its stocks significantly ahead of this tournament, this was a game that Al Hilal would ordinarily have had no right winning.

But this is also why football is the beautiful game; the impossible made possible.

The scenes of celebration in the dressing rooms, and across the cafes and streets of Riyadh in the early hours of Tuesday morning, were reminiscent of another of Saudi football’s recent milestone moments – their 2-1 win over Argentina at the World Cup in Qatar.

The shockwaves of this result will reverberate around the football world in the same way. After two years of distraction about money and potential star acquisitions at Al Hilal, this match was the coming-out party for club football in Saudi Arabia.

Cape Town, South Africa – Five months ago, with a single social media post, United States President Donald Trump put half a million people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at risk when he announced the closure of USAID – the single biggest aid donor in the country.

A few days ago in Washington, DC, the same administration claimed credit for extricating the Congolese people from a decades-long conflict often described as the deadliest since World War II. This year alone, thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

While the White House may be celebrating its diplomatic triumph in brokering a peace deal between tense neighbours DRC and Rwanda, for sceptical observers and people caught up in conflict and deprivation in eastern DRC, the mood is bound to be far more muted, experts say.

“I think a lot of ordinary citizens are hardly moved by the deal and many will wait to see if there are any positives to come out of it,” said Michael Odhiambo, a peace expert for Eirene International in Uvira in eastern DRC, where 250,000 displaced people lost access to water due to Trump’s aid cutbacks.

Odhiambo suggests that for Congolese living in towns controlled by armed groups – like the mineral-rich area of Rubaya, held by M23 rebels – US involvement in the war may cause anxiety, rather than relief.

“There is fear that American peace may be enforced violently as we have seen in Iran. Many citizens simply want peace and even though [this is] dressed up as a peace agreement, there is fear it may lead to future violence that could be justified by America protecting its business interests. ”

The agreement, signed by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers in Washington on Friday, is an attempt to staunch the bleeding in a conflict that has raged in one form or another since the 1990s.

At the signing, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe called it a “turning point”, while his Congolese counterpart, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, said the moment had “been long in coming”.

“It will not erase the pain, but it can begin to restore what conflict has robbed many women, men and children of – safety, dignity and a sense of future,” Wagner said.

Trump has meanwhile said he deserves to be lauded for bringing the parties together, even suggesting that he deserves a Nobel prize for his efforts.

While the deal does aim to quell decades of brutal conflict, observers point to concerns with the fine print: That it was also brokered after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said in March that he was willing to partner with the US on a minerals-for-security deal.

Experts say US companies hope to gain access to minerals like tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium that they desperately need to meet the demand for technology and beat China in the race for Africa’s natural resources.

But this has raised fears among critics that the US’s main interest in the agreement is to further foreign extraction of eastern DRC’s rare earth minerals, which could lead to a replay of the violence seen in past decades, instead of a de-escalation.

M23 and FDLR: Will armed groups fall in line?

The main terms of the peace deal – which is also supported by Qatar – require Kinshasa and Kigali to establish a regional economic integration framework within 90 days and form a joint security coordination mechanism within 30 days. Additionally, the DRC should facilitate the disengagement of the armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), after which Rwanda will lift its “defensive measures” inside the DRC.

According to the United Nations and other international rights groups, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops on the ground in eastern DRC, as Kigali actively backs M23 rebels who have seized key cities in the region this year. Rwanda has repeatedly denied these claims.

M23 is central to the current conflict in eastern DRC. The rebel group, which first took up arms in 2012, was temporarily defeated in 2013 before it reemerged in 2022. This year, it made significant gains, seizing control of the capitals of both North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in January and February.

Although separate Qatar-led mediation efforts are under way regarding the conflict with M23, the rebel group is not part of this agreement signed last week.

“This deal does not concern M23. M23 is a Congolese issue that is going to be discussed in Doha, Qatar. This is a deal between Rwanda and DRC,” Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza, a Rwandan political commentator, told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, explaining that the priority for Kigali is the neutralisation of the FDLR – which was established by Hutus linked to the killings of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

“Rwanda has its own defensive mechanisms [in DRC] that have nothing to do with M23,” Ruhumuliza said, adding that Kigali will remove these mechanisms only once the FDLR is dealt with.

But the omission of M23 from the US-brokered process points to one of the potential cracks in the deal, experts say.

“The impact of the agreement may be more severe on the FDLR as it explicitly requires that it ceases to exist,” said Eirene International’s Odhiambo. “The M23, however, is in a stronger position given the leverage they have from controlling Goma and Bukavu and the income they are generating in the process. ”

The US-brokered process requires the countries to support ongoing efforts by Qatar to mediate peace between the DRC and M23. But by including this, the deal also “seems to temper its expectations regarding the M23″, Odhiambo argues.

Additionally, “M23 have the capacity to continue to cause mayhem even if Rwanda decided to act against it,” he said. “Therefore, I think the agreement will not in itself have a major impact on the M23. ”

In terms of the current deal’s effect on the two countries, both risk being exposed for their role in the conflict, he added.

“I think that if Rwanda manages to prevail on the M23 as anticipated by the deal, it may prove the long-suspected proxy relationship between them. ”

For DRC, he said Kinshasa executing the terms of the agreement will not augur well for the FDLR, but suggested calls to neutralise them may be a tall order.

“If [Kinshasa] manage to do it, then they remove Rwanda’s justification for its activities in the DRC. But to do so may be a big ask given the capacity of the FARDC [DRC military], and failure to do so will feed into the narrative of a dysfunctional and incapable state. Therefore, I think the DRC has more at stake than Rwanda. ”

On the other hand, Tshisekedi’s government could score political points, according to Jakob Kerstan, DRC country director for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation (KAS), which promotes democracy and the rule of law.

“The sentiment … of the Congolese population, it’s very much like the conflict has been left behind: No one really cares in the world; the Congo is only being exploited, and so on. And the fact that there is now a global power caring about the DRC … I think this is a gain,” he said.

He feels there is also less pressure on Kinshasa’s government today than earlier this year when M23 was first making its rapid advance. “There are no protests any more. Of course, people are angry about the situation [in the east], but they kind of accept [it]. And they know that militarily they won’t be able to win it. The Kinshasa government, they know it as well. ”

‘Peace for exploitation’?

Although Kinshasa appears to have readily offered the US access to the country’s critical minerals in exchange for security, many observers on the continent find such a deal concerning.

Congolese analyst Kambale Musavuli told Africa Now Radio that reports of the possible allocation of billions of dollars worth of minerals to the US, was the “Berlin Conference 2. 0″, referring to the 19th-century meeting during which European powers divided up Africa. Musavuli also bemoaned the lack of accountability for human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, Congolese Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege called the agreement a “scandalous surrender of sovereignty” that validated foreign occupation, exploitation, and decades of impunity.

An unsettling undertone of the deal is “the spectre of resource exploitation, camouflaged as diplomatic triumph”, said political commentator Lindani Zungu, writing in an op-ed for Al Jazeera. “This emerging ‘peace for exploitation’ bargain is one that African nations, particularly the DRC, should never be forced to accept in a postcolonial world order. ”

Meanwhile, for others, the US may be the ones who end up with a raw deal.

KAS’s Kerstan believes Trump’s people may have underestimated the complexities of doing business in the DRC – which has scared off many foreign companies in the past.

Even those who welcome this avenue towards peace acknowledge that the situation remains fragile.

Alexandria Maloney, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s US-based Africa Center, praised the Trump deal for combining diplomacy, development and strategic resource management. However, she warned against extraction without investment in infrastructure, skills and environmental safeguards. “Fragile governance structures in eastern DRC, particularly weak institutional capacity and fragmented local authority, could undercut enforcement or public trust,” Maloney told the think tank’s website.

Furthermore, China’s “entrenched footprint in the DRC’s mining sector may complicate implementation and heighten geopolitical tensions”, she added.

For analysts, the most optimistic assessments about the US’s role in this process appear to say: Thank goodness the Americans stepped in; while the least optimistic say: Are they in over their heads?

Overall, this Congo peace agreement seems to have few supporters outside multilateral diplomatic fora such as the UN and the African Union.

For many, the biggest caution is the exclusion of Congolese people and civil society organisations – which is where previous peace efforts have also failed.

“I have no hopes at all [in this deal],” said Vava Tampa, the founder of grassroots Congolese antiwar charity Save the Congo. “There isn’t much difference between this deal and the dozens of other deals that have been made in the past,” he told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story.

“This deal does two things really: It denies Congolese people – Congolese victims and survivors – justice; and simultaneously it also fuels impunity,” he said, calling instead for an international criminal tribunal for Congo and for perpetrators of violence in both Kigali and Kinshasa to be held accountable.