Saudi Arabian football club Al Hilal has won 28 matches in a row: a 1-1 draw against Damac on September 21, 2023, the last time they failed to win.
Al Hilal, whose top smart goalscorer this season is former Newcastle United and Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, issued a statement on Tuesday after their latest win announcing that they had broken the world record for most games won in a row by a football club.
Their 28th successive win, they said, allowed them to surpass the 27-game winning streak of the most sensible Welsh club, New Saints, in the 2016-17 season.
Advertising
Guinness World Records – the reference e-book and long-standing online page that lists and collates global records in the fields – has endorsed Al Hilal’s winning streak as a global record.
So, has the Saudi Arabian team achieved something that no club has achieved in more than 150 years of competitive football?Are there any other groups that claim to have had longer winning streaks than this one?Is it even the longest winning streak in the game?Right now?
The Athletic tries to answer this and clear up any confusion.
First of all, Al Hilal have won 28 matches in a row. These victories have come in 3 other competitions: the Saudi Pro League, the King Cup and the AFC Champions League.
Their 28th straight win came Tuesday against fellow Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad in the AFC Champions League.
Al Hilal are nine points behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr at the top of the Saudi Pro League table. They are also in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey and the Champions League.
Al Hilal will face Damac on Saturday afternoon in the league, the last team they failed to beat, in the hope of securing a place.
But when it comes to their claim (widely spread through media outlets around the world this week) that they are now on the longest winning streak in football history, things are a little less clear-cut.
Here’s what Al Hilal had to say in the opening lines of their press release: “Al Hilal coach Jorge Jesus expressed his joy after Saudi League club Roshn made history in world football by winning their 28th consecutive match in all competitions. Saudi League leader Roshn 2-0 victory over Al Ittihad in Jeddah in the AFC Champions League on Tuesday night overcame Welsh club New Saints’ 27-game winning streak in the 2016-17 season. Prior to that, the record had stood for 44 years after Dutch giant Ajax’s 26-game victory. streak between 1971 and 1972. “
Advertising
At this point, it’s natural to think that at some point, a team, somewhere, has won more games in a row. It might have been a third-division team in Costa Rica in the 1970s, but that still counts, doesn’t it?Isn’t it?
Well, no, at least according to Guinness World Records. For example, when Scottish fifth division team East Kilbride won 30 games in a row in 2016, Guinness World Records ruled that the run did not count because the club did not play in its country’s most sensible division.
In a way, this makes a lot of sense, because it prevents a team in an advertising league that wins dozens of games in a row from unilaterally asserting itself as the world record holder.
And it explains why when the New Saints, who play for the Welsh national team, won 27 consecutive matches later in 2016, Guinness World Records proved it as a record, surpassing Ajax’s 26 consecutive victories in the early 1970s, when Johan Cruyff was their talisman. .
So, while Al Hilal did not specify that their record is maintained only through the most sensible clubs, it would seem moderate to say at this point: “Yes, fair play. It’s a global record for all intents and purposes. “
Except that (and we must realize that there’s a theme coming up here) it’s complicated. Athletic have noted two purported winning streaks from the most sensible clubs that seem to exceed Al Hilal’s 28 games. And, surprisingly, one of them is underway lately.
The Hungarian club Ujpest, the third most successful team in their country in terms of first division titles, a dominant force in the years immediately following World War II. So much so that when they won the championship in 1945-46, their record before the postseason play-offs were as follows: 26 games, 26 wins, 0 draws, 0 losses. Ujpest also won the championship last season, winning 18 games in a 22-match campaign.
Advertising
The effects of those matches are freely available from the Rec. Sport. Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF), which is a foreign football statistics organization with an unparalleled database of global effects on the history of the sport.
Thus, according to RSSSF, Ujpest won its last two matches of the 1945 season (this crusade was played exclusively during a calendar year) and then, as mentioned above, the 26 matches of the normal 1945–46 championship season. play-off stage, where they won twice more before drawing with Ferencvaros, meaning they have won 30 league games in a row according to this.
But, of course, clubs play in other competitions outside their domestic league. So what about the additional matches that Ujpest will have participated in?
This winning streak took place before the advent of major European club festivals, but at the time there was a tournament called the Mitropa Cup, played by groups from the successor countries of Austria-Hungary (dissolved in 1918). However, this festival was not held from 1941 to 1950 due to World War II and the disruptions it caused.
Then there’s the Magyar Kupa, Hungary’s biggest national cup festival. Again, for reasons similar to the Mitropa Cup, this tournament was not held while Ujpest were winning the league. In addition, the Hungarian Super Cup, contested between the winners of the league and the winners of the Magyar Kupa, did not come until 1992.
All this means that, in terms of competitive matches, the only matches played through Ujpest in this era were in the league.
So, can we count it and claim that Ujpet’s 30-game winning streak in the mid-1940s was longer than Al Hilal’s existing streak?The Athletic contacted Guinness World Records and a spokesperson for the organization said: “We don’t have the data to conclude conclusively. With the effects of football in this era, we don’t have the data to back up the studies we want to back up the records. That’s the case here. “
Advertising
It may sound frustrating, but it’s worth remembering that a complete record of every football match ever played (even those involving top-flight clubs) is not and never will be. During the war years, the groups played many “friendly” matches. It is therefore possible that they continued until 1946 and that some were considered competitive for reasons lost in the mists of time. Ujpest, a native of Budapest, the Hungarian capital, probably wouldn’t have managed to win any of those games.
Still, is it imaginable that Al Hilal isn’t even on the longest winning streak by a top-flight football club at the moment?
FK Arkadag is a club from Turkmenistan in Central Asia founded in 2023. He entered the country’s elite and won the name in his first season, as well as the Turkmenistan Cup.
Arkadag, founded by the country’s former president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, won all 24 league matches under that name last year and also triumphed in seven cup matches. This season, they have won their first two league games. In total, 33 consecutive victories. It also means that the club has won each and every competitive match it has played.
During the winter break between seasons, Arkadag played 4 friendlies, two of which were against Ukrainian clubs. They lost any of those games, but given their friendly status, they do not count as competitive matches and are applicable when counting. Winning streaks.
So is this hard to understand team play in a league with little media policy in an unfamiliar country that has the longest winning streak through the most sensible club in world football and, perhaps, in history?
The Athletic contacted Guinness World Records about Arkadag’s remarkable streak. “There are few major points to highlight about the Turkmenistan league, less than we would like for the kind of due diligence we are doing in our studies on this record and similar records. ” they said. Possibly it would also imply a lower point of government and festival than we normally look for. Taking all this into account, we confirm that Al Hilal is the record holder.
Thus, according to Guinness World Records, Al Hilal is right to claim its streak as the longest (by a more sensible club) in the history of football.
The Athletic is aware that some readers find Guinness World Records’ responses frustrating, but they are surely right to point out the lack of data due to the lack of thorough recordkeeping, which is a huge impediment to their ability to definitively claim Ujpest. or Arkatag’s winning streaks longer than Al Hilal’s.
And even if Arkatag’s winning streak could be officially verified as the longest ever achieved through a top-flight club, are the competitions he participates in at the required level?On the other hand, some might say the same thing about Al Hilal or the New Santos before them.
(Top photo: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)