Apr 20, 2026, 05:58 PM ET<\/p>\n
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Defending champion Al Ahli<\/a> reached the final of the AFC Champions League Elite after Ivan Toney<\/a>‘s second-half goal beat Vissel Kobe of Japan 2-1 on Monday.<\/p>\n In Saturday’s final in Jeddah, Al Ahli will face Shabab Al-Ahli of the United Arab Emirates or Machida Zelvia of Japan, who meet on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Al Ahli came from behind after Vissel Kobe took the lead in the 32nd minute. Yuya Osako headed a free kick into the path of Yushinori Muto, who finished from close range.<\/p>\n The Saudi Pro League<\/a> side came close to equalizing just before halftime when Rayad Hamad hit the post with a header, and England<\/a> striker Toney backheeled narrowly wide moments later.<\/p>\n Toney had the ball in the net five minutes after the restart, running clear to fire low from just inside the area, but the effort was ruled out for offside.<\/p>\n Kobe nearly doubled its lead soon after, only for Daiju Sasaki’s shot to rebound off the crossbar.<\/p>\n Al Ahli equalized in the 62nd when Brazilian winger Galeno<\/a> curled a shot into the top corner from 25 meters, and then took the lead eight minutes later when the Kobe goalkeeper’s parry fell to Toney, whose first-time shot went in through a crowded area in front of goal.<\/p>\n Riyad Mahrez<\/a> thought he had added a third with 15 minutes remaining, but the effort from the former Manchester City<\/a> star was disallowed for offside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 20, 2026, 05:58 PM ET JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Defending champion Al Ahli reached the final of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-596985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}