Fluminense 2-1 Al Hilal: Hercules continues legendary run and secures semi-final place

Hercules wrote his name into Fluminense legend as his second-half strike secured a 2-1 win over Al Hilal and booked their place in the Club World Cup semi-finals.

Having already stunned Inter Milan to reach the last eight, Fluminense were underdogs again in Orlando against Simone Inzaghi’s side.

Yet they took the lead in the 40th minute through Matheus Martinelli’s stunning bending effort.

Al-Hilal, having earlier seen a penalty award overturned after a VAR review, levelled through Marcos Leonardo’s fourth goal of the tournament six minutes into the second half.

Fluminense, though, were not to be denied, and it was Hercules who settled an entertaining contest when Martinelli’s replacement surged into the penalty area and fired into the bottom-left corner 20 minutes from the end of normal time.

Fluminense v Al Hilal

There were emotional scenes before kick-off as a minute’s silence was held for Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva after they were tragically killed in a car accident on Thursday. Jota’s Portugal team-mates Joao Cancelo and Ruben Neves were tearful as the silence was observed.

The first half had been low key until it burst into life with Martinelli’s wondrous opener, which saw him turn as he collected Facundo Bernal’s pass and bend a sublime strike into the top-right corner.

Al Hilal were denied an equaliser when Fluminense’s 44-year-old goalkeeper Fabio stretched every sinew to dive and turn away Kalidou Koulibaly’s powerful header.

The Saudi side looked to have been awarded a controversial spot-kick after Danny Makkiele pointed to the spot following a coming together between Samuel Xavier and Leonardo at a free-kick in stoppage time.

But replays showed Xavier had been looking at the ball throughout as the ball came into the box and that contact between the two had been incidental.

Al-Hilal were furious as Makkiele signalled he had overturned his original decision, but there was delight for them soon after the restart when Leonardo stabbed home after Koulibaly’s header was blocked.

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Just a minute later, German Cano was sent through by a defensive error at the other end, but Bono averted the danger by rushing from his goal to smother as the forward attempted to round the Morocco goalkeeper.

Moteb Al Harbi lashed over a presentable opportunity to complete the turnaround for Al Hilal and that proved costly as Hercules punished his profligacy.

Hercules, having replaced the booked Martinelli after half-time, continued his run into the box after his initial path to goal was blocked, and he latched on to Xavier’s header from an Al Hilal half clearance superbly before powering beyond Bono.

Bono produced heroics to keep out a Xavier volley and deny Fluminense a third, and Al Hilal never significantly threatened to find a second equaliser as the Brazilian side ensured their memorable run will continue into the last four.

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