Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 461. (Read 112669 times)

Al Hilal didn't start their best squad so scoring just one goal was justifiable although considering the decision Al Jabalain are playing in (1st division) and they're sitting in 5th position, Al Hilal is supposed to be beat them comfortably without needing their star players. Al Hilal performance has been dropping each game they played and their coach have to do something about that or they stand to lose their advantages in the title competition in the Saudi Pro league. Getting a narrow win in the king cup of champion match should be a wake up call because although they had all the ball with possession control and had more shots at goal, they still couldn't score more than one goals. This is the first time this two side are meeting so maybe Al Hilal underated Al Jabalain.


Resting Ronaldo was necessary because he isn't in his 20's again that he can play multiple games without getting tired. He's on his best form so far after leaving Real Madrid and have scored and started in all or most of his last games, he needed to rest because the opponents weren't much of a threat since Al Nassr has defeated them numerously very easily as well. Sadio mane was in the team and also Talisca and they both scored. Al Nassr winning 5:1 justified they didn't need Ronaldo although as a fan I would have wanted him in this game so he can get more goals to his name. This type of games would have given him a hattrick very easy. I hope in Al Nassr next game, the coach decision to rest Ronaldo pays up and not become a problem as he falls off form that he was on before the rest.

100%. In one of the interviews, he talked about this in detail and the main idea was that he had already earned a lot of money and this issue had been resolved not only for him but for the whole family. I am sure that he still has huge ambitions and is waiting for the moment when he can lead a top club again. If Ancelotti was able to return to the top after Everton, then why can’t Mourinho do this after Roma (with which he achieved success, by the way, unlike Ancelotti).

Indeed, Al-Nassr doesn't need Ronaldo's role in an easy match like this and I think the coach made an exception for Ronaldo so that he doesn't have to come to defend Al-Nassr and prioritizes his appearance for this week's Saudi League match. Some of the players you mentioned are very reliable for scoring goals, especially the goal scored by Seko Fofana from a hard kick outside the penalty box which was very difficult for the opposing goalkeeper to save. Regarding Al-Hilal, however, they have tried their best and the results are not what they wanted. Al-Hilal should have scored more than 1 goal but again their opponents also performed quite well.

Al Nassr coach Luis Castro chose to rest Cristiano Ronaldo, because he believes that Al Nassr can handle Ohod's game without the captain. Al Nassr played in the Saudi Arabian King Cup competition, and met clubs playing in the First Division (second tier of Saudi football) under the Saudi Pro League. In terms of player quality and squad depth, the Al Nassr squad is quite superior, so the big victory over Ohod without Ronaldo is also not surprising.

Al Nassr success paved their way to the top 16 stage, then a drawing will be held to determine their opponents at that stage. In the First Division, Ohod played quite badly and is now in the bottom position of the standings because they have not managed to win in the last 5 matches. So the move to rest Ronaldo was the right one, and Luis Castro knows the quality of his squad is above Ohod level.

star players or talented players are not robots who are always able to perform strongly every season because they need rest in several matches, even players who are a little older like Ronaldo also need to rest for several matches so they dont compete. this effort is to stabilize or maintain the player stamina so that they remain strong for several seasons.
so sometimes the star players or mainstay players of a team are not present on the field or just sit on the bench, in fact they are just resting their stamina so they can remain stable in the future and I agree with you that if Ronaldo is rested for a while Al Nassr still has other players like Mane has the talent to be able to provide victory at the end of the match.

In the first half, Al Nassr players seemed to have a little difficulty breaking through Ohod's back line. Even though there were always opportunities to score goals, defender Ohod always managed to outwit and disrupt the flow of attacks launched by Sadio Mane and his friends. As a result, in the first half Al Nassr could only score one goal, and that too through a penalty kick which was scored by Sadio Mane.

But in the second half, Sadio Mane and his friends managed to open the deadlock and succeeded in breaking through the opponent's defense and taking advantage of opportunities which resulted in four goals being scored. Basically, in my personal opinion, in the first half Al Nassr still had not found a powerful attack point. But after the first half break into the second half, it was seen that Al Nassr's attack style was more focused and more open. Therefore, it could be said that don't just look at Al Nassr as having only one spear (Ronaldo). Because on the other hand there are still other players who have quality, and there are also coaches who also have lots of strategies.

So Ronaldo did not play in the match. I also agree, because in the last few matches Ronaldo has always continued to play. So naturally, in the match against Ohod he was rested. Maybe coach Al Nassr also saw that his opponent was not too tough. That's why this is an opportunity to rest Ronaldo. And for the next match against Al Tae,e, Ronaldo will most likely be played again.

@QueenVera resting Ronaldo is a tried and tested strategy and even Zidane did that while managing him at Real Madrid and if I’m correct he even performed better once he was back hence I expect him to score more goals when he’s back. Also I strongly believe that Al-Naasr is now no longer solely dependent on Ronaldo because they have got quality player’s who can effectively fill in for Ronaldo like we saw in this match.

It's a good thing Ronaldo was rested so he'll be fit to play in their league match, Ronaldo is not very young anymore and could loss form due to fatigue so sidelining him for the match a way of keeping him fit and it's also proved that Al-Nassr could win a match without Ronaldo, cause alot of people feel the team is nothing without him,Mane is another very good player people are forgetting at Al-Nassr, since his arrival to the team, he's been very impressive and has helped the team  either scoring goals or assisting Ronaldo.
 
 Al-Hilal is another team I love in the Saudi pro league and if not for the love of Ronaldo I would love them to win their league, because they're very impressive and plays good football, i feel they're like the Barcelona of the Saudi league. However Al Jabalain suprisenly made the game tough for them but they showed their class as a big team and secured the points.

Al-Nassr FC did not need captain Cristiano Ronaldo to beat Ohod. The Portuguese striker was rested and didn't travel for the game. Goals from Sadio Mané,  Seko Fofana, Anderson Talisca, Ayman Ahmed, and Sami Al-Naji devastated Ohod.  The first half ended in a one-all draw and I thought the game might end with a slim win by any side. But Al-Naasr came up with a good plan of attack that made them create more chances and utilize them. Al-Hilal dominated the game and had a massive ball possession but the goal didn't come as expected. But the breakthrough came through Ruben Neves in the 64th minute. Al-Hilal goal was allowed by the video referee in the 73rd minute, but the single goal was enough to give Al-Hilal. Al Jabalain defended very well and they proved that they could stand a quality team like Al-Hilal.

We will never know what steps Arab clubs will take next season. Because even in the transfer market this season we also saw a lot of surprises from Arab parties who succeeded in bringing in more European players. So it is not surprising that next season Arab clubs will also succeed in bringing in more of today's top European coaches.

Currently Al-Ettifaq is one of the clubs that has succeeded in bringing in a very good coach who is also a legend at Liverpool. he is Steven Gerrard. And maybe other Arab clubs will be inspired by the steps taken by Al-Ettifaq who succeeded in bringing in a quality coach who is also a legend in European football, especially Liverpool.

Because the growth of Saudi Professional League is not natural and organic but comes from investment from Saudi Arabian government through PIF, it is an unsustainable growth. If their government lose interest in the league and stop money flow to PIF, top four clubs of the league will no longer be able to pay salary for those star players from Europe as well as will not be able to buy more new star players.

Those clubs and the league will return to where they were before the heating spending wave, and likely end like Chinese Superb League years ago. Hopefully this growth will be continue to at least World Cup 2030 as it is a plan of Saudi Arabian government to host that World Cup in Asia.

Last night, both Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal both won the Kings Cup competition over their opponents. Al-Nassr won by a landslide and Al-Hilal could only win narrowly in that match, but at least both teams have good capital to play the Saudi League match this week. Talking about Al-Nassr this week they will face Al-Tai and of course this will be another easy match for Ronaldo and his friends to aim for victory again.

However, Al-Hilal, on the contrary, will face a fairly strong opponent, namely Al-Shabab and as we know, Al-Shabab is a regular team in the top 4 of the Saudi league, so it is possible that Al-Hilal will have quite a difficult time winning this match. Moreover, last summer Al-Shahab also got a new European player and he was Yannick Carassco, who is a former Atletico player. Of course it will be quite difficult to determine who will win this match, but the most appropriate bet is BTTS with odds @1.75.

The heat of the Saudi Pro League is just the unbelievable salary of the players on the other side of the career slope. It doesn't attract viewers at all. The Premier League is an empire that has existed for a long time. They have built a good name and quality. Here, we not only see stars competing to shine but also see the strategies of good coaches. I feel like a storybook. Creating one surprise after another, We watched spectacular performances and goals. We are witnessing how an ordinary team destroyed a group of all-stars thanks to their coach's tactics.
The Saudi Pro League still needs to do more to put itself on the table with the Premier League.

So that what I mean is that Mourinho is still very enthusiastic and confident about being able to win a title with AS Roma so there will be a few obstacles if Al Nassr wants to bring Mourinho as coach there.
But when his contract with Roma expires there is a big possibility that Mourinho will also go to Saudi and become a coach the Saudi team for the end of his retirement is also a good enough choice for Mourinho to take.

Of course Al Nassr can have better coaching and Mourinho is also one of the best coaches from Portugal who has quite a lot of championships in his coaching history.
And what more Mourinho has quite a lot of experience as a great coach and can easily make a football team develop faster.

I have heard rumors about Ronaldo and De Gea a few days ago but I don't know whether De Gea will be interested or not and also whether Al Nassr management really wants De Gea to be the goalkeeper there.

Actually, the rumors about Jose Mourinho being approached by Arab clubs are rumors that are true. But the rumors I heard were not rumors about Arab clubs being interested in bringing in Jose Mourinho next season. But I read news about two Arab League clubs who have submitted proposals to Jose Mourinho this season. But Jose Mourinho has rejected both offers.

And the two clubs are not Al-Nassr but Al-hilal and Al-Ahli. More precisely, this matter was published on Fabrizio Romano's Twitter on August 7 2023. The content of the twitter was about Jose Mourinho's statement which admitted that he had received two offers from two Arab clubs, namely Al-Hilal and Al-Ahli. But he refused because he was comfortable at AS Roma and he would remain at AS Roma.

There are even other rumors that Jose Mourinho might extend his contract at AS Roma after his contract expires in 2024. But everything can change. It could be that this season Jose Mourinho still wants to stay at AS Roma. But we don't know next season. Because the offer from the Arab club is very high. So I will understand if he finally accepts an offer next season.

---

Sourch: Sports.sindonews.com

To be honest, I haven't heard any news regarding this recently. But I heard similar rumors several months ago when Al-Nassr fired their coach at that time, Rudi Garcia. for example in this news
(Sourch: https://www.bola.com/dunia/read/5263908/jose-mourinho-masuk-daftar-bidikan-al-nassr-pilihan-cristiano-ronaldo)

But then the rumors were debunked after it turned out that Al-Nassr chose Luis Castro, who eventually became the choice of coach for Al-Nassr. And Luis Castro is also the current coach of Al-Nassr. And it is rumored that Luis Castro was chosen because of a recommendation from Cristiano Ronaldo.
(Sourch: https://sport.detik.com/sepakbola/bola-dunia/d-6799442/al-nassr-segera-rekrut-pelatih-yang-direkomendasikan-ronaldo)

So I doubt the rumors are true. Because the current Al-Nassr coach is very good.

It's funny when comparing Saudi Pro League to European competition, it's weigh out of the picture. For instance, which football lover will overlooked a clash between North London derby game, or better Manchester City vs Liverpool clash and settle for some Al Nassr and Al Hilal game, ofcourse its not appropriate, and in the first place, these SPL clubs signed European players inother for their league to become popular in the world of football. The English Premier League is an elite one and popular because of the big names and competitive clubs that anticipates in the competitive race.

The only factor that will take Mourinho away is money. I don't think they will go beyond this to the Saudi Arabian league because the tournaments they participate in are far away from the tournaments in Europe. Roma is a team that recently won the conference league cup and played in the UEL final. If luck had been on their side, they would have won. For him to leave these successes and go to the Saudi Arabian league and coach a team, he needs to receive an astronomical fee.

Everything depends on the players. English Premier League is wildly popular across the world, because the best players used to participate in it. I know that the Saudi Professional League is a new entrant (at least in terms of global popularity), but already they have become one of the most popular football leagues around the globe. And star players continue to flock to Saudi, as other leagues can't compete with them in terms of monetary power. EPL will remain as one of the top leagues, but don't think that the SPL will not be able to dislodge it from the no.1 position.

This is not the point, his "entertaining football" is nowhere to be found, that's the issue. I still believe that they made a mistake getting him as a player, but it was a financial decision that made the team watched more, just like how I do not think that Ronaldo worths THIS much money, still a good player but 200+ million euro a year? Of course not, well to be fair no player on the world worths that if you ask me.

However, this league is getting players to increase viewership and Neymars entertainment football could be a key to that if he does it, unfortunately he hasn't shown anything just yet, he is just getting started and he is doing worse than what I expected he would do. Lets see a few more games before I start judging though.