Al Rayyan went down fighting to Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia 1-3 in their highly-entertaining first clash of the 2024-2025 AFC Champions League Elite at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on Tuesday.

While Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (15th minute), Joao Cancelo (42nd minute) and Marcos Leonardo (44th minute) scored for the winners, Roger Guedes pulled one back for the hosts in the 47th minute.

Despite Al Hilal leading 3-0 at half-time, Al Rayyan hit back early in second session and continued to wage a battle, keeping the rivals on their toes.

There was plenty of goal-mouth action, hits and misses including a fabulous penalty save by Al Rayyan goalkeeper Paulo Victor that kept the large number of fans enthralled.

After keeping Al Hilal at bay at the start, Al Rayyan suffered a reversal much against the run of play as Milinkovic-Savic burst into the penalty area to meet midfielder Malcom’s in-swinging cross from the right and power his header home.

Al Rayyan retaliated with an attack and in the 19th minute a superb header by David Garcia was kept out by a rising Al Hilal goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, his fingertips pushing the ball over the goal.

Mahmoud Trezeguet then came agonisingly close to equalizing for Al Rayyan as his blistering shot from the corner of the penalty area deflected narrowly wide.

With three minutes left in the half, Al Hilal doubled their lead as Cancelo sent in a low first-time shot past Victor after Malcom had slid the ball into the Portuguese right back’s path.

Two minutes later, the former Manchester City man turned provider and Leonardo made it 3-0 applying the finishing touch at close range as Cancelo slid a pin-point pass through to the edge of the six-yard box.

A determined Al Rayyan came back recharged post break and immediately broke through the rival defence as Guedes combined with Achraf Bencharki on a fast move and the latter delivered a low cross for Guedes to boot in the ball on a volley (1-3) which sent home fans up in delight.

After more tussles, a goalmouth action saw Al Hilal being awarded a penalty when Mitrovic’s header hit Julien de Sart’s right arm, but goalkeeper Paulo Victor pushed away the Serbian striker’s 71st minute spot-kick as he dived to his left, keeping Al Rayyan’s hopes alive.

While Al Rayyan kept up their hunt, Al Hilal continued to go close to a fourth with Milinkovic-Savic heading over the target and Malcom hitting the post before Al Dawsari’s shot was saved by Victor.

Al Rayyan’s commitment once again came to the fore in the dying moments of nine minutes of stoppage time as substitute Tameem Mansour sent in a diagonal kick towards an empty goal with the goalkeeper charged ahead, but the ball just went wide to right.