Jorge Jesus, the Al Hilal manager, made light of a spat between him and the manager of Gwangju, even though his opposite number said he will be content if he never sees him again.
The team from Riyadh had begun the first AFC Champions League Elites Finals event in spectacular fashion on Friday night in Jeddah.
Hilal thrashed the unheralded side from South Korea 7-0 in the first of the tournament’s quarter-finals.
This is the first time the final three rounds of Asia’s leading club competition are to be played in one place, with single-leg ties being staged over the space of eight days in the Saudi port city.
Although Hilal are nominally playing on home soil, in that the event is being played in Saudi, their fans have still had to travel a vast distance to get here.
Jeddah is around 1,000kms from the Saudi capital, where Hilal are based. And yet the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium was swamped with their supporters.
The 48,713 attendance might have been slightly short of the stadium’s 62,000 capacity, but the atmosphere they created was extraordinary.
So much so, that when the final whistle blew, Kim Kyung-min, the Gwangju goalkeeper, bowed in respect to the fans behind him.
Shortly after, the whole of his side stood in front of the bank of blue fans behind the goal, and also bowed.
The show of sportsmanship was in stark contrast to what had passed between the two managers just after the whistle.
Jorge Jesus went to Lee Jung-hyo, the Gwangju manager, and appeared to mock him for something he had said during his side’s 7-0 drubbing.
“I feel the Hilal manager must have had a misunderstanding, judging by the reaction he had against me,” Lee said.
“Honestly, I don’t care that much because for the rest of my career I am probably not going to see the head coach of the opposing team. What has passed has already passed, so I don’t care about what happened.”
In Jorge Jesus’ own post-match briefing, though, he opted to focus on the show of sportsmanship by the Gwangju players.
“The result of the match did not reflect our real impression of [Gwangju],” the Portuguese said.
“If you win 7-0 it means the opponent is very weak. But on the contrary, they were a tough and strong team.
“The politeness and respect we saw from our opponents, despite the defeat we had showed a good example of sportsmanship.
“All of the staff and team showed so much respect. They waited for our players, shook their hands, and we congratulate them for their culture. Despite the result, they showed good control and didn’t lose their temper.”
Hilal’s performance was as spectacular off the field as it was on it, as their travelling fans produced an eye-catching choreography in the stands.
Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who was player of the match, started it with a header from a corner.
Marcos Leonardo, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Malcom and Abdullah Al Hamdan also scored, while Salem Al Dawsari and Nasser Al Dawsari were the two players who netted while the fans were mid-tifo.
They did, though, lose Joao Cancelo to injury, and Jorge Jesus believes they can improve on their performance.
“Things weren’t very complete,” the Portuguese manager said.
“I would prefer to win by one goal and have a more complete performance, but congratulations to the fans and the players.”
