Al-Ahli are back on the continental stage, but this time everything looks different from a year ago. The Saudi side have overhauled their squad, changed their coaching staff and lost several of their biggest stars. And with a fresh Asian triumph behind them, the ambition has climbed too.
Back in the 2025 edition, Al-Ahli played under Germany's Matthias Jaissle with the likes of Algeria's Riyad Mahrez and Ivory Coast's Franck Kessié in their ranks. They arrived as one-time Asian champions. Pyramids beat them 1-3.
The 2026 edition finds them in a very different guise. Marino Pušić has taken charge, Jaissle, Mahrez and Kessié have all gone, and new faces have entered the picture, chief among them Eduard Spertsyan and Francisco Trincão.
Al-Ahli have changed, but the ambition has risen
The biggest difference between the two editions is not just about swapping names. Al-Ahli's continental standing has grown after they claimed the AFC Champions League Elite title for the second time, reaching this tournament as two-time Asian champions.
That achievement hands Al-Ahli a different kind of responsibility. They are no longer playing simply to prove themselves against another continent's champion. They enter this one required to protect their image as one of Asia's kings, especially against African champions Sundowns.
Pušić, meanwhile, has to work with a team whose features have shifted from last season. Al-Ahli have lost players who formed a key part of their identity, Mahrez and Kessié above all, leaving the coach with the job of building a new identity from the pieces he has.
From Jaissle to Pušić
Matthias Jaissle was the man who led Al-Ahli in 2025, leaning on names that made up a large part of the team's strength, Mahrez and Kessié foremost among them. That phase ended when the coach and those players left the club.
Marino Pušić now leads the side into the 2026 edition, and he has a chance to present something technically different. The changes to the squad give him room to redistribute roles and build a system that suits his new players.
Spertsyan and Trincão embody that shift. Al-Ahli now have fresh names capable of offering different solutions in attack and in creating danger. The real test lies in whether Pušić can weave them into a cohesive system against a strong opponent.
Spertsyan and Trincão against Sundowns
Eduard Spertsyan and Francisco Trincão add a different dimension to Al-Ahli's line-up. The team now carry new options in attack and in playmaking, rather than leaning on the names that featured in 2025.
Sundowns will not grant Al-Ahli much time to experiment. The South Africans bring huge experience to matches like these, and staging the tie on their own turf tilts the calculations further.
So Pušić's ability to deploy his new players and strike the balance between possession, pressing and defensive security may well decide how Al-Ahli look. Any miscalculated attacking surge could hand Sundowns the spaces they thrive on.
A new encounter
A year ago, Al-Ahli ran into the African champions of the time, Pyramids, and lost 1-3. That defeat ended their journey against a representative of the African continent and laid bare how hard these clashes between continental champions can be, whatever the names and circumstances.
Twelve months on, they face the African champions again. This time it is Sundowns, and in wholly different circumstances, after the coaching staff changed and several of the team's most prominent players departed, Matthias Jaissle, Riyad Mahrez and Franck Kessié among them.
Al-Ahli, by contrast, enter this one as two-time Asian champions, with a new group led by Marino Pušić and names such as Eduard Spertsyan and Francisco Trincão on board. The match is a chance to show how differently they can respond against the African champions.
Between 2025, when Pyramids beat them, and 2026, when they meet Sundowns, plenty has changed within the team. The tie keeps the same common denominator, though: the Asian champions against the African champions, and Al-Ahli desperate not to repeat the ending of a year ago.