With the AFC Champions League Elite finals taking place in Jeddah, the perfect decider for the locals was always a meeting between local Saudi Pro League powerhouses Al Ahli and Al Ittihad.
In action first on Friday, the former continued to hold up their end of the bargain with a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Johor Darul Ta'zim to advance into the last four but, later in the evening, the dream final vanished.
Instead, it is the fairy tale that is Machida Zelvia's debut in Asian football's premier club competition that carries on -- as they advanced from the quarterfinals with a gritty 1-0 victory over a star-studded Al Ittihad outfit.
Australian striker Tete Yengi emerged as the match winner with the only goal of the game in the 31st minute, although Machida were made to survive a second-half onslaught which also included a VAR reprieve in the dying stages of the contest.
While they have already done well to get this far in their first foray in continental football, a remarkable achievement on its own when considering they were still playing in the third-tier of Japanese football as recently as in 2015, Machida's victory over Al Ittihad is undeniably the biggest in their history considering the quality of opposition they were up against.
The J1 League outfit have just one player in their squad boasting previous experience in Europe's top five leagues: captain Gen Shoji, who spent a year in Ligue 1 with Toulouse.
In comparison, the 11 players that walked out onto the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City Stadium pitch in Al Ittihad colours included famous names such as Fabinho, Moussa Diaby, Danilo Pereira, Youssef En-Nesyri and Houssem Aouar.
Just for good measure, Netherlands international Steven Bergwijn and former Monaco starlet George Ilenikhena were waiting in reserve.
Still, like all Japanese teams that compete in the tournament each season, Machida did not seem bothered by who they were coming up against. They simply backed themselves to rise to the occasion.
Al Ittihad's undeniable quality however meant that it did not take long for them to get on the front foot. They fired a few warning shots early on, and one -- a speculative attempt from outside the area by Diaby -- whizzed inches wide of the post.
But as Machida gradually found their footing, they soon were showing some enterprise of their own. And through an extended period of pressure around the half-hour mark, they would break the deadlock.
It was a corner in the 29th minute that had Al Ittihad beginning to feel the heat -- cleared only as far as to the edge of the box, where an effort from distance from Hiroyuki Mae was fairly central but still forced Predraj Rajković to tip over from just beneath his bar.
Two minutes later, a long throw by Kotaro Hayashi was flicked on by Daihachi Okamura towards a lurking Erik at the far post, requiring Rajković to be quick off his line to shut down any shooting chance.
But almost immediately after, another ball was hurled in by Hayashi again from the right. Once more, Okamura's towering presence caused problems as the throw-in ricocheted off his back towards Erik.
In an attempt to control the ball in an awkward position, Erik succeeded in diverting it backwards to a waiting Yengi -- whose effort into the ground and towards goal was helped into the back of the net by a proper slice of an attempted clearance from Fabinho.
Needing to change things at the break, Al Ittihad coach Sérgio Conceição immediately sent on Bergwijn -- who had only started on the bench due to doubts surrounding his full fitness ahead of the game.
The arrival of the ex-Tottenham and Ajax star immediately changed the contest, as did that of Saudi Arabia international Abdulrahman Al-Aboud not too long after.
Bergwijn's direct running, in tandem with Diaby's, started to stretch the Machida defence. The creative Al-Aboud was also causing problems with his angular probing passes from the right.
All of a sudden, Machida were surviving by the skin of their teeth.
Aouar could only look on in despair seven minutes after the restart when a searching left-wing cross sailed over a sea of players and landed at his feet, only for his deflected effort to loop ominously towards goal before coming back off the woodwork.
In the 73rd minute, an ingenious early delivery by Al-Aboud completely caught the Machida defence unaware, only for En-Nesyri -- seemingly the only person on the pitch who had read his teammate's visionary intentions -- to send a firm diving header into the other post.
Then, with four minutes remaining, there was one final bit of drama.
A freekick swung in deep from the right was nodded by Aouar back across the face of goal, where Danilo looked to have done brilliantly to contort his body and get enough purchase on the ball to guide it over Shoji's desperate attempt to head off the line.
Machida immediately cried foul, with coach Go Kuroda instantly charging out of his dugout. How much he could verbally communicate with the officials, considering the language barrier, was inconsequential given he made his feelings obvious with the TV hand gesture that is almost now a requirement to be seen at every match.
At first glance, it did look as though Aouar might have given Shota Fujio a nudge in other to get enough space to head the ball back into the six-yard box. That was likely the transgression that Machida were calling for.
Instead, the VAR caught that -- after the ball had initially come off Danilo's knee -- it then brushed off his entire forearm en route to finding the back of the net, voiding Al Ittihad's equaliser -- and their last hope of taking the match into extra-time.
Al Ittihad are the only team to have won back-to-back titles since Asian football's top-level competition was rebranded as the ACL in 2002-03, but they have now failed to make it beyond the quarterfinals in their past five appearance.
Instead, it is a team at the other end of the spectrum -- Machida, writing their very first chapter in the tournament -- who are one step closer to glory.
