Rarely has a major football final pitted together two sides of such contrasting standing as Saturday’s AFC Champions League Elite fixture in Jeddah.
The 60,000-seater King Abdullah Sports City Stadium will be packed to the gills with Al Ahli Saudi fans, all craving a second consecutive continental title.
When they won the title for the first time last season, the stadium was at capacity hours before kickoff. There was a rush on the gates, and it is safe to assume there were a good deal more inside the ground than the officially quoted attendance of 58,281.
It is difficult to overstate the desperation their fans have felt over getting in to see the sequel this weekend, against Machida Zelvia of Japan.
At the start of the week, before their final opponents were even confirmed, the club had to issue a statement to fans saying they were doing all they could to accommodate demand.
It assured them it was “protecting the rights of its loyal supporters” in its communication with the tournament organisers. That included “protecting fans from unauthorised practices associated with the black market”.
On Friday morning, some fans were sharing screengrabs online showing their place in the electronic queue for a ticket. There were more than a million in front of them.
Then compare the Ahli frenzy with their opposition, a club that is a modest newcomer to Asian football's elite, and 10,000km from home.
Machida’s doughty, 1-0 win against Dubai’s Shabab Al Ahli in the semi-final on Tuesday was watched by a modest total of 395.
Even though the game was staged in the smaller of the two venues for these finals, the silence still echoed around the empty stands of the elegant Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Sports City Stadium.
Around 50 of those in attendance had made the arduous trip from Tokyo. Where the other 300-odd came from, who knows. Maybe they counted the stewards, too.
Even without the limitations of distance, cost of travel, and the Iran war, Machida are a small side on the brink of something extraordinary.
They are only in their second season in the top-flight of Japanese football. Their coach had 28 years in charge of football at a high school before trying his luck in the pro game in his 50s.
Between them and the title stands a side full of great stars of the game like Riyad Mahrez, Ivan Toney, Franck Kessie and Edouard Mendy.
“They are players that I have watched growing up and players that I have dreamt of playing against,” Shota Fujio, the Machida forward, said.
“However, while we do have respect for them, we have to win otherwise we can’t create a future for ourselves. We want to win and show how strong we are.”
It has been done before. As Tony Popovic, the manager of Western Sydney Wanderers, said after his debutants shocked the continent by winning the 2014 ACL title: “We were called a small club yesterday; today we are the biggest in Asia.”
And so it might be for Machida. “[Ahli] are a team with so many experienced and skillful players,” Go Kuroda, the former school coach now in charge of Machida, said.
“We know how strong they are. Of course, we play with our own style. We want to showcase what we believe in can work on the big stage.
“Of course, this stadium will be full of supporters for the home team. We are aware of this and we will do our best not to be overwhelmed.
“We want to just showcase how strong we are as Machida Zelvia.”
Machida have conceded just seven goals in 12 matches in this tournament, and none since the knockout stages started.
They topped the league table for the West region of the opening phase of the competition, and Matthias Jaissle, the Ahli coach, says they deserve respect.
“They are well structured and it will be a tough, tough match,” Jaissle said.
“But this is normal. Otherwise, they would not have qualified for the final. We know that they also have some individual quality up in front, but also as a collective team, they can threaten every opponent.
“They will try to do that for sure tomorrow as well. And we need to be disciplined. We showed that we also can defend really well, and that's needed tomorrow.”
Jaissle knows his side have some firepower to call on. They were 1-0 down in each of their quarter and semi-finals, but had players of the pedigree of Galeno, Toney and Kessie to dig them out of trouble.
“Every game we’ve played here since the last 16 has not been easy,” Mahrez said.
“We’re expecting it to be difficult again tomorrow. But we are ready and we know what we have to do to win the game.”
