Al-Qadsia SC

Every meeting between Al-Qadsia and Al-Arabi carries the weight of a rivalry Kuwaiti football calls its own El Clásico, and neither side treats it as an ordinary fixture. The two clubs have spent decades trading league titles, and a defeat in that derby lingers longer than most.

The club now known as Al-Qadsia began life in 1953 under the name Al-Jazira, before a renaming on 20 October 1960 gave it the identity it carries today. Yellow and black kits earned it the nickname 'The Yellow Castle', and the colours have stayed put through the club's long run near the top of Kuwaiti football, alongside Al-Arabi and Kuwait SC.

Not every year at the Mohammed Al-Hamad Stadium has gone Al-Qadsia's way. In 1987, with Luiz Felipe Scolari in charge, the side finished seventh, a low point in a history otherwise crowded with 17 league titles and 17 Emir Cups. The 2013–14 season stands apart from all of it: four trophies in a single campaign, capped by the AFC Cup, which made Al-Qadsia the first Kuwaiti club to win the competition.

Bader Al-Mutawa has done more than anyone to define the club's modern era. He joined in 2002 and went on to become the Kuwait Premier League's all-time leading scorer with 162 goals, a tally built almost entirely in yellow and black. Jasem Yaqoub belongs to an earlier chapter, a one-club man from 1970 to 1983 who was part of the Kuwait side that won the 1980 AFC Asian Cup.

All of it, the cups and the near misses alike, still gets measured against Al-Arabi. When the two meet, the league table matters less than the history between them.