Saudi Arabian soccer club Al Hilal has won 28 games in a row. The last time they failed to win was on September 21, 2023, when they drew 1-1 against Damac.
Al Hilal, whose top scorer this season is former Newcastle United and Fulham forward Aleksandar Mitrovic, issued a press release on Tuesday following their recent victory, saying they have broken the world record for most consecutive match wins by a football club. announced.
Their 28 consecutive wins surpassed the 27 consecutive wins recorded by Welsh top club New Saints in the 2016-17 season.
Guinness World Records, a long-standing reference book and website that lists and collates world records in various disciplines, recognized Al Hilal's winning streak as a world record.
So have the Saudi side really achieved something that no club in competitive football has achieved in over 150 years? What other team can claim a longer winning streak? Is it also the longest winning streak in the sport at the moment?
The Athletic I'll try to answer this and clear up the confusion.
First of all, Al Hilal has definitely won 28 games in a row. These wins have come in three different competitions: Saudi Pro League, King Cup, and AFC Champions League.
On Tuesday, they faced fellow Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad in the AFC Champions League, marking their 28th consecutive victory.
Al Hilal are nine points behind Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nasr at the top of the Saudi Pro League. They have also reached the semi-finals of the King's Cup and Champions League.
Al Hilal will face Damak, the last team without a win, in Saturday night's league match as they aim to move to 29th place on the spin.
Al Hilal wins 28 consecutive games (Yaser Baksh/Getty Images)
However, things become a little less clear when it comes to their claim, which was widely reported in media around the world this week, that they are currently on the longest winning streak in football history.
Here is what Al Hilal said in the first few lines of its press release: “Al Hilal coach Jorge Jesus expressed his joy after the Roshun Saudi League club made history in world football by winning 28 consecutive games in all competitions.'' On Tuesday night, in the AFC Champions League, Roshun Saudi League leaders defeated Al Ittihad 2-0 in Jeddah, surpassing the 27 wins achieved by Welsh club New Saints in the 2016-17 season. Previously, Dutch giants It was a record that lasted 44 years, second only to Ajax's 26 consecutive wins from 1971 to 1972.
At this point, it's natural to think that surely, at some point, some team has won more games in a row than this. It may have been Costa Rica's third tier in the 1970s, but it still matters, right?
Well, actually, at least according to Guinness World Records. For example, when Scotland's fifth-tier side East Kilbride won 30 games in a row in 2016, Guinness World Records ruled that the goals conceded did not count because the club did not play in their home league. .
This makes a lot of sense in a way, as it prevents a team that has won dozens of games in a pub league from unilaterally declaring themselves world record holders.
And that explains why when New Saints, who play in the Welsh top flight, won 27 consecutive games in late 2016, Guinness World Records actually recognized it as a record – led by Johan Cruyff This surpassed Ajax's 26 consecutive wins in the early 1970s. It was their talisman.
New Saints playing at home in Oswestry (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Therefore, although Al Hilal did not explicitly state that their record was one held only among elite clubs, it seems reasonable to say so at this point. This is a world record in every sense of the word. ”
You'll notice a theme emerging here, though, and it's complex. The Athletic We have discovered a record of two consecutive wins by a top club, which is believed to surpass Al Hilal's 28 matches. And surprisingly, one of them is currently underway.
Hungarian club Ujpest was their country's third most successful team in terms of top league titles and were a dominant force in the years immediately following World War II. When they won the league championship in 1945-46, their record before the postseason playoffs was 26 games played, 26 wins, 0 ties, and 0 losses. Uzipest had won the league the previous season as well, winning 18 games. Games in a 22 match campaign.
The results of these matches are available for free at the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF). RSSSF is an international soccer statistics agency with an unrivaled database of worldwide results spanning the entire history of the sport.
According to the RSSSF, Whipest won the last two games of the 1945 season (that campaign only took place in one calendar year) and then, as mentioned above, won 26 of the 1945-1946 regular league season. We won all our matches. They then progressed to the play-off stage, winning two more before drawing with Ferencvaros. According to this, they have won 30 consecutive league games.
But, of course, the club also plays in other competitions outside of the domestic league. So what will happen to the extra matches that Uzipest will play in?
This championship was won before the introduction of major European club competitions, but at the time a tournament called the Mitropa Cup was being held, contested by teams from the successor countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (defunct in 1918). Ta. However, due to World War II and the turmoil that followed, this competition was not held from 1941 until 1950.
Then, the Magyar Kupa, Hungary's main cup match, was held. Again, for similar reasons to the Mitropa Cup, this tournament was not held when Uzhpest won the league. Furthermore, the Hungarian Super Cup between the league champions and the Magyar Kupa winners was only introduced in 1992.
All this means that in terms of fixtures, it appears that Uipest only played league matches during this period.
So can we count it and declare that Uzipest's 30-game winning streak in the mid-1940s was longer than Al Hilal's current record? The Athletic When contacted, a spokesperson for Guinness World Records said: “There is no information that conclusively supports the execution of Uzipest. In this era of soccer results, the information supporting the research required to approve a record is not always available. This is the case here. ”
This may seem frustrating, but remember that a complete record of every soccer match ever played (even just top-flight matches) does not exist, and never will. Worth it. During the war, teams played many “friendly matches”, so it is possible that this lasted until 1946 and that some teams were considered competitive for reasons lost to the mists of time. there is. Uypest, a native of the Hungarian capital Budapest, may not have won one of those games.
But is it possible that Al Hilal currently don't even have the longest winning streak among football's top clubs?
FK Arkadag is a club from Turkmenistan in Central Asia, founded in 2023. They quickly entered the country's top league, winning the title in their first year and also winning the Turkmenistan Cup.
Founded by former president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Arkadag won all 24 league games and seven cup games before clinching the title last year. They won their opening two league games this season. This is a total of 33 consecutive wins. This also means that the club has won every competitive match it has ever played.
The recently inaugurated city of Arkadag in Turkmenistan (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
During the winter break between seasons, Arkadag played four friendly matches, two of which were against Ukrainian clubs. They lost these two games, but given their status as friendlies, they do not count as competitive games and are irrelevant when it comes to point totals.
Is this unknown team, playing in a little-publicized league in a relatively unknown country, therefore the longest winning streak by a top-flight club in world football, and perhaps in history?
The Athletic We have officially contacted Guinness World Records about Arcadag's incredible record. “There is relatively little detailed information available regarding the Turkmenistan League, and it is not as much due diligence as we would like to be conducting in our investigation regarding this and similar records,” they said. “This may also be indicative of the level of governance and competition that we normally seek. Considering all this, we have confirmed that Al Hilal is the record holder.”
Therefore, Al Hilal were right when they declared their winning streak to be the longest in football history (by a top club), according to Guinness World Records.
The Athletic We understand that some readers may find the answers from Guinness World Records frustrating, but the lack of complete record-keeping is a major impediment to definitively declaring a record for Uipest or Alkadag. Therefore, it is entirely correct to point out that there is a lack of information. A longer winning streak than Al Hilal.
And even if Arcadag's winning streak is officially proven to be the longest in history by a top-flight club, are the competitions they play really at the level they need to be? However, some might say the same about Al Hilal and the New Saints before them.
(Top photo: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)
