Mumbai City FC to play AFC Champions League Group match against Neymar's Al Hilal
After the Indian Super League team was paired with Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal in the group round of the continental club event, Mumbai City FC players may look forward to rubbing shoulders with Brazilian superstar Neymar in the 2019 AFC Champions League season.
The third-place finishers in the Saudi Pro League in 2022–23, Al Hilal, just acquired Neymar, a former player for Barcelona FC and Paris Saint–Germain who also won the UEFA Champions League with Barcelona.
The AFC Champions League's most successful team in history is Neymar's new Saudi club, which has won the competition four times and finished in second place five times. For the 2017 season, Al Hilal has strengthened its roster by bringing in high-profile players like Neymar Jr., Kalidou Koulibaly, Ruben Neves, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Yassine Bounou, and Aleksandar Mitrovic.
Since the AFC Champions League group stage is a home-and-away competition, it would be intriguing to watch whether Neymar makes an appearance at Mumbai City FC's home stadium, the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune.
For Indian fans, seeing Neymar play in their nation would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience if he visits Pune. The other two teams in Group D are PFC Navbahor Namangan of Uzbekistan and FC Nassaji Mazandaran of Iran. On Thursday, the group stage draw for the AFC Champions League 2023–24 took place at the Asian Football Confederation's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.