How Matthias Jaissle transformed Al Ahli into AFC Champions League contenders

Given how dominant Al Ahli has been in the AFC Champions League Elite this season, it is easy to forget that just two years ago the club was playing in Saudi Arabia’s second tier. The fall and rise again of the Jeddah giant has been one of Saudi football’s most fascinating subplots in recent years, with Al Ahli suffering relegation for the first time in its history in 2022.

Al Ahli’s demotion sent shockwaves through the Kingdom as the club is one of Saudi Arabia’s four traditional heavyweights along with Al Hilal, Al Ittihad and Al Nassr. It is a record 13-time King’s Cup winner, a three-time Saudi Pro League champion and runner-up as recently as 2017-18.

Fortunately for the club’s large and passionate fanbase, Al Ahli played just one season in the Saudi First Division; led by South African coach Pitso Mosimane, it was immediately promoted back to the top flight.

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Al Ahli then made a somewhat controversial decision to replace title-winning coach Mosimane with Matthias Jaissle, the German tactician who won two successive Austrian Bundesliga titles with Red Bull Salzburg and helped the club reach the UEFA Champions League knockout phase for the first time in its history.

It proved a masterstroke. That Al Ahli managed to convince Jaissle, a highly rated young European coach, to move to Saudi Arabia was seen as a major coup. And aided by a raft of big-name signings, with Riyad Mahrez from Manchester City and Roberto Firmino from Liverpool the headline arrivals, Jaissle took Al Ahli to a third-place finish on its return to the Saudi Pro League.

Aged 36, Jaissle remains the youngest coach in the Saudi Pro League and is only three years older than his team’s senior statesmen Mahrez and Firmino. The German coach’s focus has been on blending greener Saudi talents with more experienced foreigners and, thus far, it has worked extremely effectively.

“When you look at this team he has at Al Ahli compared to Salzburg, for sure it is very different,” Sebastian Häusl, a former RB Salzburg scout who now works for NY Red Bulls, told Al Arabiya English. “Now he has players who have moved from the Premier League so their behavior at this stage of their career is not the same as the young players in Salzburg.

“But you have to give him credit for finding ways to appeal to different players.”

In his first season in Saudi Arabia, Jaissle’s Al Ahli was firmly placed as the ‘best of the rest,’ behind champion Al Hilal and runner-up Al Nassr, who were in a contest of their own at the top of the table. Al Ahli finished six points clear of fourth-placed Al Taawoun as Jaissle made Mahrez his team’s attacking focal point; he was rewarded with 11 goals and a divisional-high 13 assists from his Algerian ace.

Jaissle’s youth has enabled him to connect on a personal level with the players in his squad, and he has emerged as a hugely popular figure in the Al Ahli dressing-room. Winger Allan Saint-Maximin said as much on last year’s Netflix documentary Saudi Pro League: Kickoff.

“I’ve been with a lot of top coaches. I think Matthias has the quality to be – in the long term – an incredible, top coach,” Saint-Maximin told the show. “We didn’t have many things when we started because we’ve started from nothing. It was a tough challenge.”

Jaissle and Al Ahli’s reward for a third-place finish last season was a spot in the newly revamped AFC Champions League Elite. Al Ahli was the first ever Saudi club to reach the final of a major continental competition, losing to South Korean side Daewoo Royals in what was then known as the Asian Club Championships in 1986. It was then denied by another Korean opponent, Ulsan Hyundai, in the 2012 AFC Champions League final.

It means the Jeddah club is still chasing its maiden continental crown, but this could well be the year it happens for Al Ahli. Jaissle’s team has been in sensational form in the ACL Elite – beating the champions of Iran (Persepolis), Iraq (Al Shorta), the UAE (Al Wasl) and Qatar (Al Sadd) in the competition’s West Asia group stage.

Its 4-2 victory over Qatar’s Al Gharafa last week saw it make it to the knockout stage of the ACL Elite without being beaten – winning seven and drawing one of its eight games. Al Ahli finished in second place, behind Al Hilal on goal difference only, and will face Qatar’s Al Rayyan in the last-16 in March.

For Jaissle, overachieving in continental competition is something that appears to come naturally. He guided RB Salzburg to the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League – a historic success that led to the club qualifying for the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States this summer.

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But the German has certainly had to adapt his approach. At Salzburg he had a young team and numerous rough diamonds he helped develop; at Al Ahli, he has many more established players – big personalities who need to be managed in a different way.

Jaissle seems to be getting things right and after a slightly rocky start to the 2024-25 campaign, he has overseen 15 wins in Al Ahli’s last 18 games. On Tuesday night, the team from Jeddah produced arguably its finest performance of the season – beating high-flying Al Qadsiah 4-1 to move within three points of third-place in the Saudi Pro League table.

“He has a certain squad with specific capabilities, and he is trying to get the best out of them,” ex-Tottenham and Egypt striker Mido, now a TV analyst, said of Jaissle after the victory over Al Qadsiah. “Al Ahli has gaps… so we should give the coach credit for what he’s doing, especially in today’s match, which was a tough test due to absences and facing a well-organized team.

“Despite that, he managed to control the game from the first minute by using high pressing and counter-pressing, which shows his tactical work. With the current squad, Al Ahli is in its natural position in the league. Finishing any higher than that would be beyond expectations.”

Al Ahli could return to the 2025-26 ACL Elite via a third-place finish but its best chance may well be to win the competition. Based on the performances of Jaissle’s team in Asia this season, it is certainly a realistic ambition; should his side maintain its current level, the German coach could be the man to deliver Al Ahli a historic first continental title.

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