Saudi stadium that hosted Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo to stage Santosh Trophy final stage

Indian football's experiment of taking the Santosh Trophy national championship abroad for the first time in its 82-year history will take shape on Wednesday with the four semi-finalists -- Punjab, Meghalaya, Services and Karnataka – to vie for the final at the King Fahd International Stadium in Saudi Arabia’s capital city.

Amid a PR blitz and a furious debate surrounding the competition leaving the Indian shores, it is easy to miss the fact that Meghalaya will be playing their first-ever semi-final in the Hero Santosh Trophy when they take on eight-time champions Punjab (kickoff: 5.30pm IST).

Six-time winners Services -- they last won the title in 2018-19 beating Punjab in Ludhiana -- will play Karnataka in the other semi-final (kickoff: 9pm IST). Karnataka last won the domestic title 54 years back when its predecessor, the erstwhile state of Mysore, beat Bengal in the 1968-69 edition. The four teams landed in the Saudi capital on Monday evening though



the scheduled training session was called off as the players were too tired.

While the kind of crowd Malappuram, Kerala drew in the last final – Kerala beat Bengal -- will be hard to replicate, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation is in touch with the Indian Embassy here to get the Indian expatriates to the stadium. Plans are also afoot to get schoolchildren to witness the matches. The tickets are priced at Saudi Riyal 5 (approx. ₹110) and SR 10 (approx. ₹220) for a package of two matches.

The third-place playoff between the losing semi-finalists and the final will be played on Sunday.

“Playing in front of a big crowd is a big plus but as a team, we concentrate on the match and not crowd support," Karnataka coach Ravi Babu Raju said.

King Fahd Stadium has in the recent past hosted Spanish Super Cup and Italian Super Cup matches besides hosting Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the Riyadh All-Star game.