Al Ittihad vs Al Qadisiya. Will Benzema's team achieve the "double"?

On Friday, May 30, the King Abdullah Stadium in Jeddah will host a match between Al-Ittihad and Al-Qadisiya in the Saudi Arabian Cup final.

• Expert Predictions Analysis
• Al Ittihad vs Al Qadisiya facts
• Odds
• Game Totals Prediction

Our Expert Predictions & Analysis on Al Ittihad vs Al Qadisiya

Al Ittihad

The new Saudi Arabian champions finished the league season in style, beating Damak 1-0 to extend their winning streak to 6 and maintaining a healthy 8-point lead over their closest rivals, Al-Hilal. Laurent Blanc's men have proven that they are the most consistent and competent team in the final season. And to confirm this, Al-Ittihad are missing the icing on the cake in the form of the King's Cup.

In preparation for the cup final, the Al-Ittihad coaching staff did not go to extremes and conduct large-scale experiments with the lineup, simply "limiting" the playing time of their leaders. Benzema, Bergwijn, Kante and Aouar started, but played for just over an hour, after which they were replaced. Fabinho, Danilo Pereira and Unai Hernandez played the full match. But goalkeeper Rajkovic and forward Diaby, who had previously been injured, were not included in the application for the previous match. Their participation in the cup final is also still in question.

Al Qadisiya

Michel Gonzalez's charges did not "break their backs" in the last round for the sake of a "bronze place", which essentially gives nothing except beautiful medals, and, unlike their opponent in the upcoming cup final, they carried out a large-scale rotation of the squad.

Even Al-Qadisiya's application for the match with Al-Hilal (which they eventually lost with a score of 0:2) did not include goalkeeper Casteels and midfielder Nandez, defender Nacho and forward Quiñones spent the entire match on the bench, and Aubameyang, Fernandez and Puertas got different, but not full, amounts of playing time in this match.

Thus, the coaching staff took care to avoid injuries and fatigue of the leaders before the most important match of the 2024/25 campaign for Al-Qadisiya. Or maybe we are talking about the most important match for the club in several decades, because the trophy in the Al-Qadisiya museum has not appeared since 1992, when the team won the King's Cup (or the Crown Prince's Cup, as this trophy is also called in Saudi Arabia).

Al Ittihad vs Al Qadisiya facts

• Al-Ittihad have participated in the finals of the national cup 12 times - 8 wins, 4 losses
• Al-Ittihad have won their last 6 matches of the season in a row, scoring exactly 3 goals in 5 of them
• Al-Qadisiya have lost only one of their last 7 matches of the season (5 wins, 1 draw)

Odds from download 1xbet

In the bookmaker's office 1xbet, the favorite of the final match of the Saudi Arabian Cup is the Al-Ittihad team, on whose victory you can bet with a coefficient of 2.39. You can use the 1xbet promo code  to bet on a draw in this match with a coefficient of 2.65, and on the victory of Al-Qadisiyah you can bet for 3.30. Install the 1xbet app and place a bet on the favorite!

Game Totals Prediction

Both final opponents are in good shape and high spirits, both teams have enough classy "finishers", which allows us to count on at least one exchange of goals in the duel between Al-Ittihad and Al-Qadisiya. Of course, taking into account the final status and increased tension, we can assume that there may not be as many goals as an outside observer would like, but here we believe more in the statistics of face-to-face duels between these opponents. And it is as follows - 3 matches in a row on "both will score". We will bet on "OZ" and this time with a coefficient of 1.62. And for those who want a higher coefficient, there is an option "both will score + total over 2.5" for 2.27.