Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 57. (Read 118885 times)

I think Neymar’s impact at Al-Hilal and Ronaldo’s role at Al-Nassr holds some validity when viewed in the broader context of team dynamics in football. Neymar, despite his talent and global stature, hasn’t had the continuous playing time at Al-Hilal due to injuries, and while his presence could elevate the squad, Al-Hilal has indeed built a well-rounded team with enough star power to remain competitive. Players like Malcom, Rúben Neves, and others have proven themselves capable of delivering results, even in Neymar’s absence, and I think that was waste of money in the first stage.

Similarly, while Ronaldo’s influence at Al-Nassr has been transformative, especially in terms of leadership and bringing the team to another level, the squad has also strengthened with other key signings. The team's success isn’t entirely dependent on Ronaldo, as they have added depth in various positions, making them a formidable side even without him.

Both teams have demonstrated that, though their star players can make a huge difference, they aren't solely reliant on them, which is a testament to their squad building strategies. It is interesting to see the competition between these team.

I don't really know a lot of people who focus on the names. Most people focus on what the team achieves. The Ronaldo effect is already gone and Al Nassr is struggling. Now does it help that Ronaldo is there? It doesn't make a difference and while in the beginning everybody was excited and wanted to see whether Ronaldo can win titles with the team, the buzz around him is now very low. Nobody actually cares what Ronaldo is doing for Al Nassr. On the contrary, people are still paying attention to what he is doing for the Portugal national team and that makes a lot more sense. The Saudi Professional League isn't all that interesting when in Europe there are matches like Manchester City versus Inter Milan.

This is not wrong, but it is undeniable that when we are interested in the Saudi Pro League because we see big names here, so that is what drives us to continue talking about the team based on the names of the players they have. I think this is something natural because they have also just gained popularity recently, unlike the Premier League or La Liga for example where they have achieved popularity for a long time, so we talk about them as a whole team.
However, if we watch, in the Premier League for example, we also see a lot more talk about big teams that usually compete at the top than small teams that only compete in the middle or relegation zone. Although the intensity may not be like what we see in the Saudi Pro League, there are also many who pay attention to the overall standings.

It seems too cruel to say that Neymar is a big cheater for Al Hilal because he did not accidentally get injured when he just joined Al Hilal, it was an agreement that had been agreed upon by both of them without any element of coercion for the club they were willing to pay a lot for this star player and did not think the player would experience such misfortune but who would have thought Neymar had a long injury so this was not a fraud but a loss for Al Hilal but the loss could be paid off because Al Hilal won the SPL title last season even without Neymar even though initially Al Hilal had high hopes for this star player.

In fact, without Ronaldo Al Nassr struggled to create opportunities even though they had good squad depth but it was a shame that the club depended on Ronaldo maybe if Ronaldo retired this season Al Nassr would be even more depressed fortunately Ronaldo still wanted to fight with Al Nassr this season.

I think you are right. Nowadays, sometimes we focus too much on the names of players owned by clubs in the SPL. So sometimes we judge the strength of the team based on these names. Although none of that is wrong either. But the more important thing actually lies in how well a team utilizes these players to make the team much stronger. And so far Al-hilal and Jorge Jesus are the ones who have succeeded in maximizing the players in their squad well. Be it local players or European star players that they bring in.

Al-Nassr has just lost a coach and maybe we will soon see the name of a new coach who will fill the coaching bench at Al-Nassr.

I think we need to stop seeing only the names in the games between Alnassr and Al Hilal or Al Ahli and other teams with super players who comes from europe.

Why i said this? Because all that teams already have super good players so now the only diference is how they play as a team, and not the names or individualities, for that Jorge Jesus makes the better team, super balanced and win everything.

It looks like Al-Hilal will continue to be the club that dominates the league in the SPL. Because Al-hilal's performance is even better this season. The addition of new players like Joao Cancelo will certainly make Al-Hilal even more solid at the back. We know that Joao Cancelo is a defender, but sometimes he is also good at positioning so he can score goals. He also did this often when he was loaned to Barcelona last season. And actually I feel Al-hilal is very lucky to be able to get this player. Meanwhile, Al-Nassr seemed to be experiencing difficulties at the start of this season. And it turns out that it is not only in the SPL but also in the AFC Champions League Elite. Meanwhile, Al-Hilal is still good in all competitions. I think that even this season, Al-Hilal will still be the favorite to become champions again.

This match was draw and both teams got equal points and that was hard match for both teams because both teams gave their hundred percent to win this match . Al-Nassr team got good position in Saudi Pro League and Al-Ahli Saudi team is far behind. Al-Nassr team is at 7 postion and Al-Ahli Saudi team is at 9 position.Al-Nassr team played 3 matches and got 5 points with GD of 3 and Al-Ahli Saudi team played also there matches and has GD of 1 by getting 4 points. Alhurayji 90+9'  was successful to draw this match but before his goal ,Al-Ahli Saudi team was very close to win but after the Alhurayji goal we saw change in this match .

I think the important thing for Al Nassr is the defense rather than the midfield. Because they do not have difficulty in scoring goals but they concede goals very easily. They should get important players for both the goal and defense. They need to spend money for this. As far as I know, the transfer season is over now and they will not be able to make any transfers until the mid-season break. However, transferring a few important defenders during the mid-season break will increase the quality of the team. Otherwise, they will not be able to win the championship this year either.

With unsatisfactory results last season and this season, I think Al Nasr's move to fire Luis Castro was the right thing. Because I saw that Castro was too monotonous in making strategies so that Al Nasr did not experience positive development after being trained by him. Maybe bringing in Pioli as a replacement for Castro's departure would be a pretty good thing. The reason is that Pioli is a very great coach with a wealth of experience coaching big teams in Europe. So with Pioli's abilities and experience, there will certainly be great hope for Al Nasr to be able to move in an even more positive direction. But this is still just a rumor, so its certainty is still in question until now. But hopefully Al Nasr can really bring in Pioli as soon as possible. Because if Al Nasr's coaching seat is empty for too long, of course this will have a slightly negative impact on Al Nasr.

But what is a bit of Al Nasr's problem at the moment is that its defense line is still very weak, so Al Nasr needs great defenders to overcome this weakness. So in the transfer window that has just finished, Al Nasr should have bought a new defender. Because the defenders that Al Nasr currently has, you could say that they are not good enough. So, for example, if Pioli really trains Al Nasr, but if Al Nasr's defenders are still not good, it is likely that Pioli will also have a little difficulty making Al Nasr have a strong defense. But what can I do, the transfer window is currently closed. So for at least half of this season, or until the winter break, Al Nasr will definitely have to play with only the current players. But hopefully, if for example Pioli is really brought in as a new coach by Al Nasr, he can make Al Nasr into a great team, even with the current players.

Cristiano Ronaldo's views are certainly not to be underestimated by any club's policy makers and I think he may have a responsibility. Ronaldo is a star player and he has contributed a lot to the history of world football and he has the opportunity to create more history in the future. The fact that Al-Nassr is spending a lot of money on foreign players has increased their popularity and is enjoyed by those who love football.
They are now looking for a new head coach after firing Luis Castro. Meanwhile, Ronaldo's illness led to a draw with Iraq's Al Shortar in the AFC Champions League opener, which was a huge shock and surprise for Al-Nassr and the last match for Castro. However, Castro has led the way in the last 14 months in charge and finished second in the league last season.

People said these coach sacks in Al-Nassr are because of Cristiano Ronaldo but I don't think so. Al-Nassr invested big money last two years and with it, they expected to gain success and titles so when results are worse and not as expected, they have many reasons for firing their head coaches.

Cristiano Ronalo is their biggest super star but I don't believe he has kind of too big impacts on Al-Nassr's decisions on their head coaches. Stefano Pioli has a successful career and he is a good choice of Al-Nassr and with many years in Serie A, this coach can have ability to help Al-Nassr improving their defense system that is their biggest weakness so far. Having better defense system will help Al-Nassr to win titles in my opinion because they already have very good attacking system.

Al Nassr still suffers from poor defense but this is a problem that the coach failed to identify and it cost him his job. They have enough talent especially in the midfield and attack but they are not so strong in the defense and i thought after the end of last season the coach would add more defenders to strengthen their defense. Last season it was obvious that their defense was not as strong as Al Hilal defense and that was why Al Hilal won them easily in any fixture. To compete with Al Hilal they need a solid defense to complement the attack properly and also they need to add a few midfielders too.

Since last season I have been saying that the Al Nassr board should fire the coach because he was not managing the team well, he was not making good signings of players, and his game strategy was not good either. So I think this dismissal came too late. Because this season the new coach no longer has time to make any new signings, even if the best coach in the world appears, with this weak squad he will not be able to do much. Speaking of the new coach, according to Fabrizio Romano, the agreement between Stefano Pioli and Al Nassr is already in its final stages.


source: https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1836089207556637167

Pioli's task will not be easy. This Al Nassr squad is not very good, in my opinion they will not be able to win the league. Maybe next season

Al Hilal once again showed their mettle when they defeated Al Rayyan, a team from Qatar in the Champions League. Al Rayyan, a club from the Qatar League, did not do much when they hosted Al Hilal at their home ground. The home team did not put up much resistance, especially in the first half, conceding three goals against them. Uniquely, Joao Cancelo scored one goal in this match, Leonadro and Sergej Savic both contributed one goal in this match.
In contrast to Al Nassr who were held to a draw by Shorta, a team from the Iraqi League, although they had taken the lead first, unfortunately the home team was able to equalize and the match ended with a score of 1-1. Referring to these two teams, Al Hilal remains consistent with its positive trend. While Al Nassr, its performance has declined significantly. In the end, looking at the Al Nassr squad list data, there is no name Luis Castro in the Al Nassr squad. Considering that someone made the post above, it turns out that Luis Castro seems to have been kicked out of the coaching chair in the Al Nassr squad.

Al hillal currently has a squad depth that is able to overcome every pressure that exists in the competition in the league, so that without or the presence of Neymar in the squad actually does not have a big influence on them, but the policy of the coach of course will be very different from what we think today, to be honest if I were the coach of al hillal,  then I will terminate Neymar current contract considering the minimal contribution so far due to the long injury he has, keeping Neymar in the team will actually only be a burden for the club and indeed it would be better not to include Neymar in the current squad in order to maintain stability and also harmony of their team, we don't know whether Neymar return to the team will make their squad will get better or not,  But what is certain is that in my opinion with a team that is qualified at the moment, it is better for the coach not to take the risk of playing Neymar again this season

I saw the AFC Champions League match between Al Ahli and Persepolis and I think considering the players they bought in Al Ahli, they had a totally bad performance in this match. I was expecting to see a much better performance from Al Ahli since they have spent too much money during this summer on their team. Al Ahli is the team that got a 1-1 result draw against Al Nassr even with Ronaldo playing there which shows even Ronaldo in Al Nassr couldn't have the same good performance we saw from him the last season however that's normal to see him showing bad performance considering his age.
 

Al Hilal being that good makes basically no sense neither, because when you look at their roster you can see that they do not have the best players neither, they are just overall good as a team and that is definitely good.

I think we should be looking at this as something that is doing quite good and that is why I think we could see them win it this season as well because they are doing that well and it's clear that we are going to see them have a great season without a doubt.

I know that we are going to see Al Nassr and Ronaldo try their very best and that would be doing fine, it is why I think they are going to fail because they are trying their best and still not getting the result that they are looking for meanwhile Al Hilal is doing so well without a doubt. This is why I think we should see this changing on the long term and this is why I think the best thing to do right now and this is why I think we should bet on Hilal to keep winning the games for sure.

I don't see any reason why there will be more trouble in the Neymar injury return, even though a player has to remain in the bench because
of his presence, else I do see that the coach at some point will try to change his tactics or his formation to accommodate every individual player right there in the team, both returning Neymar and in form players. The return of Neymar shouldn't pose any problem in any way rather even spice up the team to better performance.

Hahaha yeah, i also think Al Hilal team is gonna be in more trouble when Neymar comeback to the field than now, because now they have a perfect sintony and when he arrives a player has to go to the bench for sure and maybe the team starts to suffer a disbalance.

About Neymar recovery i see ton of social media gurus talking about how bad is his recovery made by a top class specialist, things of this era.