{"id":602839,"date":"2026-09-01T18:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T18:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/602839\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T18:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T18:18:16","slug":"surprise-decision-inzaghi-settles-watkins-status-for-the-al-ahly-clasico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/602839\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise decision: Inzaghi settles Watkins&#8217; status for the Al-Ahly cl\u00e1sico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Italian coach Simone Inzaghi, Al-Hilal&#8217;s manager, has settled the situation surrounding his new English striker Ollie Watkins and whether he will feature in the Clasico against traditional rivals Al-Ahli.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Hilal host Al-Ahli today, Tuesday, at Kingdom Arena, in a postponed fixture from the third round of the Saudi Roshn League.<\/p>\n<p>According to Saudi newspaper &#8220;Al-Riyadiah&#8221;, Inzaghi has decided to hand Ollie Watkins a start in the Clasico, just a few hours after officially signing him.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Hilal confirmed the signing of Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa on Sunday, two days ago, in a deal worth approximately 60 million euros, according to press reports.<\/p>\n<p>The English striker will make his first appearance for &#8220;the Boss&#8221; from the start, just 48 hours after putting pen to paper.<\/p>\n<p>Watkins arrives as Al-Hilal&#8217;s first-choice striker for the new season. The club have waved goodbye to Frenchman Karim Benzema, Uruguayan Darwin Nunez and Brazilian Marcos Leonardo in the current summer transfer window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian coach Simone Inzaghi, Al-Hilal&#8217;s manager, has settled the situation surrounding his new English striker Ollie Watkins and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[179995,270946,120878,85,46,272455,184982,24484,105],"class_list":["post-602839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-al-ahli","tag-al-hilal-vs-al-ahli","tag-al-hilal","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-o-watkins","tag-s-inzaghi","tag-saudi-pro-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}