Simone Inzaghi handed Cresencio Summerville his Al-Hilal debut on Friday, naming the summer signing in the starting line-up for the club’s first-round Roshn League match against Al-Fayha at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
The move marked Summerville’s first official start for Al-Hilal after arriving from West Ham United in the summer in a deal reported at 80 million euros, a fee that underlined the size of the gamble and the expectation around him. He was brought in to fill the gap left by the injured Salem Al-Dawsari and was placed in a front line with Malcom and Karim Benzema, giving Al-Hilal a new attacking shape at the start of the campaign.
That was not the only change. Mohammed Mahzari also made his first start after arriving from Al-Taawoun in the summer, lining up at right-back, while Motaeb Al-Harbi, Kalidou Koulibaly and Ali Lajami completed the defence. Mohammed Kanno, Ruben Neves and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic were stationed in midfield, leaving Inzaghi with a team built around fresh arrivals and a few of his most established names.
What gave the line-up its edge was what Al-Hilal did not have. Salem Al-Dawsari missed out through injury, Hassan Tambakti was also unavailable, and the opening-night attack had to be carried by Malcom, Karim Benzema and Summerville instead. That combination told its own story: Al-Hilal were already trying to get back to the league title after two seasons without it, and Friday’s opener became an early test of whether the new pieces could hold together quickly enough to matter.
The next match will tell more about where Summerville fits than the debut itself did. For now, the headline is simple: Inzaghi trusted him at once, and Al-Hilal began the Roshn League campaign with a reshaped attack and two injured regulars watching from the sidelines.
