Salem al-Dawsari becomes first Saudi to win AFC Champions League Golden Boot
It was a tough weekend for Al Hilal as the four-time AFC Champions League winner parted company with popular coach Jorge Jesus, before watching on – having been eliminated in the semi-finals – as Jeddah rival Al Ahli won its first ACL Elite title.
While it may be scant consolation for a player who is both fiercely competitive and already incredibly decorated, Salem al-Dawsari did receive a silver lining of sorts for Al Hilal. Riyad Mahrez's failure to find the net in Al Ahli's 2-0 victory over Kawasaki Frontale in the final meant that al-Dawsari won the AFC Champions League Top Scorer award for the first time in his career.
It is also the first time a player from Saudi Arabia has won Asia's Golden Boot since the AFC began recognizing the achievement in 2002. Al Hilal's Bafetimbi Gomis (2019) and Omar Kharbin (2017), Al Nassr's Abderrazak Hamdallah (2020) and Al Ittihad's Mohamed Kallon (2005) have scooped the prize previously while playing for clubs from the Kingdom. But al-Dawsari is the first Saudi national to finish as the continent's leading scorer.
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He finished one ahead of Algerian star Mahrez and Gwangju's Jasir Asani (9) and two clear of Al Nassr's Cristiano Ronaldo and Anderson Lopes (8) of Yokohama F. Marinos, with Al Hilal team-mate Aleksdandar Mitrovic and Al Ahli's tournament MVP Roberto Firmino a further two back on six goals.
There is no question that al-Dawsari would – in a heartbeat – swap out his maiden ACL Elite Golden Boot trophy for the one that Al Ahli captain Firmino and his team-mates held aloft at the King Abdullah Sports City on Saturday night. Despite his individual excellence, al-Dawsari is a player who is hungrier to win team titles than individual accolades.
Since making his senior debut for Al Hilal in 2011, al-Dawsari has only once finished a calendar year empty-handed, with a trophyless 2014 the sole blot on an otherwise exemplary copybook. With the Saudi Pro League title currently slipping away from Al Hilal, 2025 could be just the second barren year of al-Dawsari's career.
Still, his achievement in winning the ACL Elite Golden Boot deserves to be properly celebrated. It completes a hat-trick of major Asian awards for the winger, who was also named the AFC Champions League MVP in 2021 and the 2022 AFC Player of the Year. Al-Dawsari is a history-maker for whom records have consistently tumbled over the years.
For the Saudi national team, al-Dawsari is currently level on all-time FIFA World Cup goals with Green Falcons icon Sami al-Jaber. Should Saudi Arabia reach the 2026 finals and al-Dawsari score, he would match al-Jaber's achievement in netting at three World Cups and surpass him as Saudi Arabia's leading scorer in the competition.
At continental level, al-Dawsari – according to football statistics oracle Transfermarkt – holds the record for most appearances in AFC Champions League history with 105 matches. His 33 goals puts the Al Hilal skipper third on the list of all-time top scorers too.
This season, he has moved ahead of the likes of Moroccan hotshot Abderrazak Hamdallah, legendary Saudi forward Nasser al-Shamrani and Brazilian striker Elkeson. Should he repeat his 2024-25 Golden Boot-winning haul of 10 goals next year, al-Dawsari would leapfrog both Lee Dong-Gook (37) and Dejan Damjanovic (42) and sit atop yet another AFC ranking.
'He's very talented, really quick and also incredibly fit,' former Al Hilal coach Ramon Diaz said of al-Dawsari, when asked about his qualities in a 2023 interview. 'He can dictate tempo, he's very good on the ball and scores goals. He was a talented kid who had the chance to go and play at [La Liga club] Villarreal. It was a good experience for him and the others who went and had that contact with the international game.'
Al-Dawsari's brief encounter with Spanish football was a valuable learning curve and now, aged 33, he is showing no signs of slowing down. Despite mainly operating on the wing or at No. 10, al-Dawsari had the most prolific season of his career in 2023-24; he is only three goals away from equaling that total of 24 in all competitions, with four games of the Saudi Pro League campaign remaining.
It is in Asia where al-Dawsari has shone brightest this season however.
He opened his ACL Elite account in Al Hilal's 5-0 drubbing of Iraqi outfit Al Shorta but it was in the next game against reigning champion Al Ain that al-Dawsari delivered one of his best ever performances in an Al Hilal shirt. He bagged a 30-minute hat-trick in an enthralling, end-to-end 5-4 win that gave Hilal a modicum of revenge for last year's semi-final defeat to the Emirati team.
Al-Dawsari regularly rises to the occasion in high-stakes games and it is no surprise that – after scoring in group stage wins over Persepolis and Al Wasl – he netted in each knockout round when the pressure was at its most intense. Al-Dawsari scored in the last-16 against Pakhtakor to help Al Hilal overturn a 1-0 first-leg defeat, before setting up the opener in the quarter-final thrashing of Gwangju, as well as adding Al Hilal's third of the night in that 7-0 victory.
Against Al Ahli in the semi-final, he gave Al Hilal hope with a goal just before half-time that reduced the deficit to 2-1 – but al-Dawsari could not find another moment of magic to drag his side level. That was where his participation in the 2024-25 ACL Elite ended as Al Hilal exited at the semi-final stage for the second successive season.
Now, al-Dawsari and his team-mates must regroup and prepare for another tilt at a record-extending fifth AFC Champions League triumph next season. It remains to be seen who Al Hilal will appoint as Jesus' permanent replacement as coach, but whoever gets the job knows that with Salem al-Dawsari in their starting XI, goals will never be far away.
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