A repeat of last years Round of 16 fixture sees Qatar's Al Sadd playing against Saudi Arabia's Al Ahli in their AFC Champions League Group D opener on Tuesday, 5 March. The kick-off is at the King Abdullah Stadium in Jeddah at 8:15 pm (Qatar standard time).

Last year, Al Sadd had come away from Jeddah with a 2-1 win which ultimately helped them seal a 4-3 aggregate result and advance to the quarterfinals.

Al Ahli, whose best continental performance was reaching the final in 2012, return for the third time in four years, having finished second in the Saudi Pro League. Meanwhile, this will be Al Sadd's sixth consecutive continental participation.

Iran's Persepolis and Uzbekistan's Pakhtakor are also in Group D.

Qatar's Al Duhail and Al Sadd directly qualified for the group stage of this years tournament by virtue of having finished as winners and runners-up of 2017-18 season QNB Stars League.

Al Sadd will be keen to storm into the final of this year's competition, having lost out to Persepolis on aggregate last time around.

Al Sadd's technical staff, led by Portuguese coach Jesualdo Ferreira, has announced the list of players for the Al Ahli match. They are: Saad Al Dossari, Meshaal Barsham, Jihad Mohammad, Boualem Khoukhi, Yasser Abubaker, Hassan Al Haydous, Salem Al Hajri, Akram Afif, Hassan Ahmed, Abdulkarim Hassan, Pedro Miguel, Baghdad Bounedjah, Hamed Ismail, Meshaal Ibrahim, Tariq Salman, Jung Woo-Young, Gaby Fernandez, Hussein Behzad, Ali Asad and Bahaa Al Leithi. (QNA)

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Nabeela

Content Writer

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