On August 23rd at 11:00 am Beijing time, a key match in the AFC Champions League playoffs started at Riyadh Victory's home field against Dubai Young Nationals. Although Riyadh won the championship at the beginning of the new season, it suffered a bottleneck in the league. In the first round of the league match with Dammam, Riyadh unexpectedly lost 3 points and Crowe was out of action. In the second round, Crowe was back in form, but still lost to Breda by one goal, making the home win a joke. Just 4 days later, Riyadh Victory welcomed Dubai Youngsters in the AFC Champions League play-offs and surprisingly won.
The Dubai youngsters started aggressively and threatened on the counter-attack, with a goal ruled out for offside, reminding Riyadh of the need to defend against counter-attacks.Crowe went down in the box but the referee turned a blind eye. Talisker opened the scoring with a header. But the Dubai youngsters quickly equalized, with Daboul assisting Ghassani's goal, which did not seem to go down easily.
Crowe was in a foul mood and took a reverse shot inside the penalty area, ignoring his opponent's arm while the referee put him down inside the area. Chinese referee Fu Ming angered Crowe, but he could only rage. At half-time, the score was 1-1, with Riyadh Victory having 67% possession, three shots on goal, one shot on target and one goal. The Dubai youngsters capitalized on the good opportunities to score despite having less possession.
In the second leg, Dubai Youngsters scored again, Ghassani's solo effort put Riyadh Victory on the back foot again. Konan missed the equalizer when his long range shot hit the post. As time ran out, Riyadh's savior Ghanem scored a header in the 88th minute to equalize the game and boost the morale of the team. In extra time, Riyadh scored two goals in a row, Talisker's header and Brozovic's long-distance shot. In the end, Riyadh Victory turned back Dubai Youngsters 4-2 to advance to the second stage of the AFC Champions League Qatar official.
