This should be a totally one-sided game.

Al-Ittihad are the main favorites to reach the final and play against Manchester City. They’ll play at home in front of more than 60.000 fans, so will be very motivated. They are playing here because they won the Saudi Arabia league last season and are hosting the tournament.

Last season Al-Hilal was the participant, who made a good performance winning Wydad Casablanca and Flamengo, and playing the final against Real Madrid. However, Al-Ittihad is a much stronger team this year.

Al-Ittihan spent a lot of money in transfer last season and built a very strong squad, with players who were playing at the highest level in Europe such as Luiz Felipe (Betis), Fabinho (Liverpool), Benzema (Real Madrid), Kante (Chelsea), Jota (Celtic)... and also other good players from the local league such as international midfielder Al Gandhi Faisal, who was signed for 11.7MM Euros two months ago.

Although they have made a poor start of the season in the Saudi Professional League, they did it well in the AFC Champions League qualifying as leaders with 5 points advantage, winning 5 of the 6 games played.

On the other hand, Auckland is almost an amateur team. They have the worst squad of the tournament, whose value is just 5.3MM Euros (Al-Ittihad value’s is 114.4MM Euros), and majority of their squad are local players who aren’t even professionals. Indeed according to the New Zealand rules, each player must be considered as amateur or professional. A professional player has a written contract with a club and is paid more for their footballing activity than the expenses they effectively incur. All other players are considered to be amateur.

Auckland City FC maintains its first team players are “amateur” stating the majority have full-time jobs outside football.

Although they have a lot of experience playing this tournament, all of their performances were so poor. Last season they were totally outplayed and lost in the first round 3:0 against Al Ahly Cairo, a much worse team than Al-Ittihad.

Auckland have lost three games on the trot, including a 2-0 loss to Wellington Olympic in the National League Championship final last month in their previous outing. They have not played competitively this month so will be lacking pace.

As Spanish coach Riera said: “We’re very realistic. I would say the chances to lose the game are higher than winning it. If that’s the reality, I don’t know, you know, the percentage of it but what we know is that we’re going to be playing a team that is very strong in front of the the crowd, in front of the fans on the opening game of the big tournament.”.

They know that they are huge underdogs here and will play this match just to enjoy, because the quality difference is huge.

With Ittihad making a strong performance and scoring an early goal in the first half, I expect a huge difference here of at least 3-4 goals.

这应该是一场一边倒的比赛。

伊蒂哈德是进入决赛并对阵曼城的主要热门球队。他们将在主场面对6万多名球迷，所以会非常有动力。他们之所以在这里比赛，是因为他们上赛季赢得了沙特阿拉伯联赛的冠军，并主办了这次比赛。

上赛季阿尔-希拉尔参加了比赛，他在对阵卡萨布兰卡和弗拉门戈的比赛中表现出色，并在决赛中对阵皇马。然而，今年的Al-Ittihad是一支强大得多的球队。

伊蒂汗上赛季在转会上花了很多钱，组建了一支非常强大的球队，拥有在欧洲最高水平踢球的球员，比如路易斯·费利佩(贝蒂斯)、法比尼奥(利物浦)、本泽马(皇马)、坎特(切尔西)、约塔(凯尔特人)……还有来自当地联赛的其他优秀球员，比如两个月前以1170万欧元签下的国际中场阿尔·甘地·费萨尔。

虽然他们本赛季在沙特职业联赛的开局不佳，但他们在亚冠预选赛中表现出色，以5分的优势领先，6场比赛赢了5场。

另一方面，奥克兰队几乎是一支业余球队。他们的阵容是本届杯赛最差的，身价只有530万欧元(伊蒂哈德的身价是114.4万欧元)，而且他们的大部分球员都是本地球员，甚至不是职业球员。事实上，根据新西兰的规则，每个球员必须被视为业余或职业球员。职业球员与俱乐部签订书面合同，其足球活动的报酬高于他们实际承担的费用。所有其他选手都被认为是业余选手。

奥克兰市足球俱乐部坚持认为，他们的一线队球员是“业余的”，大多数人都有足球以外的全职工作。

虽然他们有很多参加这次比赛的经验，但他们的表现都很差。上个赛季，他们完全被击败了，在第一轮以3:0输给了开罗阿赫利，一支比伊蒂哈德差得多的球队。

奥克兰队已经连续输掉了三场比赛，其中包括上个月在全国联赛冠军决赛中0比2输给惠灵顿奥林匹克队。他们这个月还没有正式比赛，所以会缺乏速度。

正如西班牙主帅里埃拉所说:“我们非常现实。我想说输掉比赛的机会比赢的机会要大。如果这是现实，我不知道，你知道，百分比，但我们知道的是，我们将是一支在人群面前，在球迷面前非常强大的球队，在大型锦标赛的首场比赛中。”

他们知道他们在这里是巨大的劣势，他们会打这场比赛只是为了享受，因为质量差异是巨大的。

由于伊蒂哈德表现出色，并且在上半场早早就打进了一个球，我预计会有至少3-4个进球的巨大差异。