Who was playing at Loftus Road last Saturday?

A colleague lives on Loftus Road (so she knows what mood I'll be in on Mondays after a home game!) and she told me that Saudi Arabia were playing there. Big lorries for TV etc.

Very good idea and a good source of revenue I suppose.

Has this happened before?

 

Yes it has last year...
It is a Saudi cup event...was played last year too
No idea who was playing or who one or why it was played in HQ

But the club made some money by hosting it...so Ok why not.
Our stadium doesn't do much else.

So here it is
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1358541/sport

Al-Hilal 2 v. Al-Ittihad 1 - Saudi Super Cup, London
LONDON: Carlos Eduardo ended months of anguish and heartache by firing Al-Hilal to Saudi Super Cup glory at a bouncing Loftus Road stadium on Saturday night.


Eduardo has been out of action since suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury in December and he must have wondered at times if he would ever play again, let alone reach the exalted level he was playing at pre-injury.


But the Brazilian playmaker announced his return to full fitness, upstaged debutant Omar Abdulrahman, and showed there is plenty of life left in him yet by scoring the first goal after 35 minutes. The way he frenziedly celebrated, with a knee slide to the corner flag, summed up just how much this goal meant to him and was clearly a release of months of frustration.


Gelmin Rivas made the game safe for Al-Hilal with a second just past the hour mark and although Karim El-Ahmadi pulled one back for the Tigers, there could be doubting the Saudi Pro League champions were worthy winners of this full-blooded encounter. They were just too quick, too nimble and too potent for an Al-Ittihad side who are looking to rebuild under new coach Ramon Diaz.


Al-Ittihad gave it a good go and huffed and puffed, but Al-Hilal just had too much quality in attack to the extent that they were able to leave the prolific Omar Khribin on the bench for 75 minutes. It will take some side to prevent Al-Hilal from winning the league title for a third straight season on this evidence.


They were by far the busier and more progressive of the two sides early on and Al-Ittihad were struggling to keep up with their slick movement. Indeed, crude fouls on Eduardo and Salem Al-Dawsari neatly summed up how they were desperately clinging on to Al-Hilal's coat tails.


Al-Ittihad's defenders had their work cut out with the fluid movement of Al-Hilal's attacking players and it look a last-ditch tackle from the excellent Hassan Moaz to prevent Rivas from connecting with Andre Carrillo's low centre and scoring what would have been a certain goal after ten minutes. From the resulting corner, Al-Dawsari, unmarked and unchallenged, should have buried a header from an Abdulrahman corner, but he failed to even find the target.


Then Al-Dawsari, back from a loan spell at Villarreal, saw a shot deflected wide when he really should have played in Yasir Al-Shahrani on the overlap. But the goal you felt was coming and it arrived on 35 minutes, Eduardo ramming home a cross from Carrillo. It was the least Al-Hilal deserved for their vibrant start.


The nearest Al-Ittihad came to troubling Ali Al-Habsi in the Al-Hilal goal was when Wanderson looped a header straight into his arms. It wasn't exactly one-way traffic, but it wasn't far off.


Diaz needed to make a change at half-time as Al-Ittihad were being over-run, but instead of shoring things up, the coach made an attacking switch, bringing on Serbian summer Aleksandar Pesic to spearhead the attack. It was a bold move.


It did nothing to shift the momentum, really. Just four minutes into the half, Al-Hilal were on the front again, Mohamed Kanno latching onto a through ball from Al-Dawsari to fire a rising half volley at Assaf Al-Qarni. You felt it was only a matter of time before Al-Hilal scored against and they did so on 62 minutes, Rivas rounding Al-Qarni to roll the ball into the empty net. The Al-Hilal fans went wild, believing that was game, set and match. The trophy, they felt, was theirs.


But Al-Ittihad refused to roll over and just minutes after Jonas forced a flying save from Al-Habsi, Moroccan international El-Ahmadi pulled one back. It was now game on with 23 minutes remaining.


Yet Jorge Jesus, the Al-Hilal coach, showed no signs of shutting up shop and he went for a third instead of holding onto the 2-1 lead by introducing Khribin for Abdulrahman with 15 minutes left. It made for a thrilling finale, as both sides threw the kitchen sink at each other, but Al-Hilal held on to win the trophy for the second time.


STARTING LINE-UPS:


Al-Hilal: Al-Habsi; Al-Burayk, Botia, Al-Bulayhi, Al-Shahrani; Kanno, Abdulrahman; Carrillo, Al-Dawsari, Eduardo; Rivas.


Al-Ittihad: Al-Qarni; Moaz, Jurman, Hassan, Thiago; Jonas, El-Ahmadi, Villanueva, Wanderson, Al-Muwallad; Romarinho.

 

We often have International Friendlies at HQ, Nigeria and Australia have both had games there in the past, with large ex-pat communities of both in London it makes sense and saves many of their European based players gruelling travel-time...

 

Thanks. Makes very good sense.

 

I was starting to get excited......thought someone said, The Who we’re playing at Loftus Road.

 

Just out of interest, were there any people protesting against the Saudi state?

 

Makes sense now......I drove through there on Saturday night in the Ambulance and the place looked a right ****ing mess, rubbish everywhere...thought it strange as we were playing away.

 

Maybe some from this board were there protesting

 

I will ask but I don't think she will have paid too much attention.

 

Lots of stones and stuff