Al-Hilal won a Saudi title thanks to a header nicknamed Yasser's hair
On the last day of the 2007–08 Saudi season, Al-Hilal needed a win away at leaders Al-Ittihad, who needed only a draw. Four minutes after half-time Yasser Al-Qahtani barely grazed a cross into the corner, and the goalkeeper held on. Fans still call that championship Yasser's hair, after the faint touch that won it.
The sweetness was doubled by revenge, since Al-Ittihad had snatched the title in the dying minutes the season before. Goalkeeper Mohamed Al-Deayea repelled wave after wave in Jeddah, and coach Cosmin Olăroiu's side added the Crown Prince Cup for a double.
The Riyadh club emerged from a 1957 split at the Youth Club, when its president Abdul Rahman bin Saeed resigned and took several leading players with him. On 3 December 1958 King Saud renamed the new team Al-Hilal, Arabic for crescent moon, and it enjoyed royal attention from the outset. The first trophy was the King's Cup in 1961. Al-Hilal became inaugural champions of the Saudi Premier League in 1976–77, and it is one of three clubs to have played every season of that competition. Success drew overseas talent in the 1970s, including the Brazilian greats Mario Zagallo and Rivellino.
At home it is the most decorated side in the kingdom, with a record 21 league titles and 13 Crown Prince Cups. Abroad it holds a record eight Asian Football Confederation trophies, among them four AFC Champions League crowns, won in 1991, 2000, 2019 and 2021. In the 2022 Club World Cup it reached the final, a first for any Asian side not representing the hosts.
The historian body IFFHS named it the greatest Asian club of the 20th century in September 2009, and by 2024 its squad carried a market value of 242.5 million euros, the highest in Saudi Arabia.
Source: Al Hilal SFC
