Topic: Saudi Professional League 2023/2024 - page 783. (Read 132555 times)

I agree, I mean why would he care if he comes off the bench, dude is 37+ years old and he has achieved all he could and he could spend a season or two being on the bench sometimes, get in later in the games sometimes and even start some games, and that would be good enough to retire on.

If he can do that at Real Madrid out of all teams, that means he stayed healthy and good for a long enough time. Hell even Ronaldo and Messi would be bench players and maybe not even find places in that team so finding his spot there at that age is definitely great. Let them get Kai or Jude or whoever, Modric would be good. However, Ittihad may get Benzema, which would be insane if they can actually do that, it would help them big time for scoring goals, dude is still great.

Ronaldo is a brand a sensation. He has great fan following and when he joined Alnasar he has been the great attrection and brought a great joy in the life of Arab kids and people belonging to all phases of lives - now when Messi will join SPL that will be a great force for sure

The debate about the old players who are rumored to be going to the Saudi Pro League seems to be answered one by one. Karim Benzema is reported to have extended his contract at Real Madrid until next year so he will spend one more season at Real Madrid maybe after that he will go to the Saudi Pro League https://www.transfermarkt.com/new-extension-until-2024-karim-benzema-set-to-stay-at-real-madrid-for-one-more-season/view/news/422444
Luca Modric is also certain to extend his contract for a year at Real Madrid https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12054067/Luka-Modric-Real-Madrid-reach-total-agreement-contract-renewal-sign-2024.html

while Lionel Messi has no recent news although he has confirmed that he will not extend his contract at PSG but has not yet announced the next club, and the latest is Sergio Ramos who has decided to leave PSG reportedly going to the Arab League and it seems that Ramos will be more certain of his arrival because he has not announced his retirement so he still needs a club to keep playing.

Ok but I think you are more of an exception than the rule. Watching the entire league and knowing all the teams because a 38 year old Cristiano plays there is not the rule. I assume that most people pay a little bit of attention, paid more attention in the beginning but now also realized that the SPL hasn't really changed. Ronaldo is there and even when there is drama I noticed on this forum that the discussion gets less significant. His club was closer to the top without him.



I absolutely understand what is owned by whom and still one of the most valuable aspect of European soccer is the deeply rooted culture. You won't make baseball the number 1 sport in Europe and you won't make soccer the number 1 sport in USA. You can buy the fastest camels and start a camel racing league in Europe, but it won't go anywhere compared to soccer.

Soccer has already been the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia and yet it is where it is. Money can do a lot, but if you can't copy and preserve the culture it will unsustainable in the long run. A Saudi buying a club in Europe has more fun than a Saudi trying to build a European club in Saudi Arabia. Do the maths.

Your last point is about the Chinese Asian market and yes that is a very valid consideration. But there is still some cultural identification and that is why European players really never liked going to Chinese clubs because we are so different and that is ok. That is absolutely ok. We are more international and globalized, but you won't be able to import sumo ringing from Japan to Europe and have the people in Europe cheer as much for the sport as they do in Japan. What do you think where the Japanese professionals were to prefer to perform? Europe or Japan? If the money is big enough, they go to Europe, but it won't be sustainable because they grew up their whole life in a different place, inherited culture and attitudes and food and everything.

You can't just buy one Messi per team and say you have a great league. Just as an example, try to calculate what it would cost in salaries to build a 2015 Real Madrid and Barcelona in the SPL to at least have a clasico that the whole world will be watching because it is the highest quality soccer you can get from clubs. Then you need persistence, so let's say you build those two clubs and Atletico to keep it extra exciting and all three clubs for 7 years. Only salaries.

Not only Messi, but now Benzema has been linked with Al Ittihad. imagine, there are three top Saudi Pro League clubs that have big stars if in the end Messi and Benzema are willing to accept the offer. however, Al Hilal's offer was more fantastic than the salary Ronaldo received. the question is whether this competition will be more competitive.

However, when viewed from another perspective the competition will be increasingly fierce. Ronaldo with Al Nassrnya, Messi with Al Hilal and Benzema with Al Ittihad. these three teams, will compete strictly in the race for the Saudi Pro League trophy. Unfortunately, what we are discussing is still not certain. Messi, reportedly will give his decision in the near future and especially after his contract with PSG ends.
on the other hand, Benzema did not reject the offer from Al Ittihad. but it seems he needs time to think, even as Fabrizio Romano said in his tweet. Benzema is discussing it with his family and he will make a decision soon. but before that, he still has one game to go in La Liga. well, in the next few weeks, it looks like we will get an official decision from these players. so, let's just wait.

I haven't seen any past or present interview where Luka Modric has openly said he wants to remain at the Santiago Bernabeu and see off his playing career and I don't even think he has ever said such Luka Modric is a player who loves new challenges.
As a footballer, he's won everything he's supposed to win at Real Madrid and as his playing career draws to an end because of his age, I think a good financial package will definitely lure him to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabian league isn't as popular as the any of the Europe big five leagues but after they got the services of Cristiano Ronaldo, many football fans all over the world has switched their attention to there and that's why they want they want to get more high-profile players to help them boost the popularity and quality of the league. I believe in the next 10 years, Saudi Arabian league would be a household name among football faithfuls all over the world

I understand your point and hence said signing CR7 was the first step to make the Saudi leagues known globally, before that i never watched any of the matches nor had any idea about the teams but now i am following the entire league and signing big names is the first step and more big time players will be moving to Saudi as they have the money.

You need to understand that majority of the big English and European clubs are now owned by Arab countries like PSG, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Saudi's owned Newcastle United and Sheffield United. Common theme is that they have the money and if they are willing to give huge offers do you think that the young talents wont be signing with them. It is a long term plan and it is a matter of time that they start grooming youngsters like the rest of the European clubs and at the end of the day money talks and they have plenty of them.

Another aspect is that, you are just thinking about European Football fans, majority of the global population is in Asia and if they could attract the Asian crowd it is a much bigger audience.

But in reality, Al Khaleej was able to play well in the first half by winning from many statistics but the result at half time Al Khaleej trailed 0-1. But yes, in the end or in the second half Al Khaleej was able to maximize every chance he had, so Al Khaleej could win with a good score 3-1. With this result, at least Al Khaleej can survive to continue playing in the Saudi Professional League next season, because Al Khaleej also avoided relegation.

Abha only had possession in the back and then before it got to the Al-Khaleej defense, they lost the ball. not many chances to get Abha. making the fight quite difficult for them to win.
Al-Khaleej did lose momentum early on, but they made up for it after they fell behind. 3 goals to reply to Abha's 1 goal was enough for their victory in the last game.

Some players are not moved by money and I guess Luka Modric is in that category. He might not be as strong as he used to be but Carlo Ancelotti wants to use his experience to build Jude Bellingham. Young players are groomed by well-experienced players that's why some coaches find them valuable. Maybe at the end of next season, he might move to the big money-spending Saudi League. The Saudi league needs more than top players to develop. More younger players also need to be attracted to the league to make it more competitive and exciting. But one of the barriers is their religious and cultural belief. Players will always be discouraged by the restrictions they will face in the league.

It's like sending Vitali Klitschko to a Chinese boxing league and believing that the whole world will start watching Chinese boxing like addicts. That's nonsense. I followed a couple of games from the SPL since Ronaldo has been there, but only some of the highlight summaries and never whole games. My interest in seeing how and what he does there dropped in an instant because it's not exciting. It is not interesting when he scores a free kick or makes a great goal. It was interesting when he played for Madrid or Manchester United. Something was on the line and I admired him for scoring goals against the best teams in the world. Now it's more like checking it out only to know what's going on. A bit like reading the newspaper but I am reading more boring parts of the newspaper than I check out how Ronaldo is doing in the SPL and I like soccer a lot.

In Saudi Professional League Al-Khaleej vs Abha these two teams came to the field to play. But Al-Khaleej won the match by scoring 3 goals but 1 player of Al-Khaleej team got red cards in 52 minutes. Abha did not perform well in this match.  But 1 goal was scored by S. Al-Selouli in 25 minutes. After the opening, poor performance started. Al-Khaleej team player A. E. Feitosa scored 2 goals alone. And L. Souza scored 1 goal.

Luka Modric aspires to extend his contract with Real Madrid; the Croatian international's ultimate ambition is to retire at the Santiago Bernabeu. Saudi Arabian teams have made major bids for big-name footballers. I see what they're trying to accomplish by bringing in great names for the sake of popularity, but football fans don't recognize their league because they believe it's not as vital or competitive as the English Premier League, La Liga, Seria A, Bundesliga, and Ligue One. Saudi Arabia top clubs are eager to include the Saudi Arabia league among the elite leagues, but it will take some time before FIFA accepts it.

Today there was news that Modric will not renew his contract with Real Madrid (although a preliminary agreement on a one-year extension has already been reached) because he also received a super-money offer from the Saudis. No matter how it all looks from the outside (Ronaldo's transfer for unreal money), it seems that their strategy is working - first they will poach old legends, and then easily poach young players, since it is much easier to move to a no-name league if such tops are already playing there as Ronaldo and Benzema, Modric. I wonder how soon European clubs will feel threatened by such an expansion. After all, this will even affect the remaining players - their exorbitant salaries will inflate even more.

Bro, I'm totally vibing with you here. Ronaldo lighting up the pitch - it's like a trending meme on Reddit, right? But turning SPL into a trending hashtag ain't just about cloning Ronaldo everywhere.

Hold up! I ain't throwing shade on getting a high-profile player. That could blow up like a viral TikTok challenge. But one Ronaldo making SPL a world-class league? Nah fam. Football's more than just a couple of games where the GOATs face-off. What about the non-trending matches, the ones without the buzz? It's not like we're talking about Coachella, right?

The Premier League didn't just skyrocket 'cause they had a couple of stars. They cooked up a league where the big guns face-off regularly. So, wouldn't you agree, the SPL needs more than just a trending Ronaldo to join the league of legends?

If you think about it, Messi doesn't have much choice because in retirement, no European club wants to sign him because of financial constraints
So the saudi league should be the right solution moreover he has competitors there like Ronaldo and Benzema who are rumored to be moving to the saudi league
this month the transfer window will open we will see the news there, hoping for more surprises next season.

I am a bit confused. Some of the media outlets are saying that Messi has already accepted the offer:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12062969/Lionel-Messis-Saudi-Arabia-522MILLION-contract-DEAL.html
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/lionel-messi-has-accepted-offer-from-al-hilal-report

The confusion is being created because Jorge Messi (father of Lionel) has repeatedly denied that his son is moving to Saudi Arabia. Also, there are rumors that Messi's wife Antonela Roccuzzo is also not in favor of the move to Middle East. L'Equipe recently reported that Antonela and the couple's three young children want to remain in Europe and they don't want to change their residence to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile Al-Hilal is also trying at this point to sign contracts with Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba (who have played with Messi when he was in Barcelona).

PSG star Lionel Messi has heard several information about his transfer this season, but so far no confirmed news has been received from Messi. PSG manager Christopher Galtier has confirmed that two-year signing Lionel Messi is likely to make a move within the next two months. In this case, Al Hilal, a top club in Saudi Arabia, raised the highest market price for his transfer. Al Hilal raised the market price of $1.2 billion for Messi, which is the highest market price ever recorded. Messi has so far not given any positive or negative answer to Al Hilal's offer.

But do you get my point that this doesn't change much in terms of the competitiveness of the league? In Europe we have the highest level soccer not because only Ronaldo on Messi were running around on the field, but because there was Real Madrid vs. FC Barcelona. I don't believe that you can build a Real Madrid in the Saudi Professional League. They won't be able to build several teams up from the ground in order to make the league so highly competitive that everybody wants to see it and European soccer fans start buying hundreds of millions of jerseys from Saudi Arabian clubs. Yes it was a first step, but at least a thousand other steps have to follow. You also don't want all these players in their late 30s when they are declining in performance. But the young super talents won't go there, but that is what they need. The young fans want to buy a jersey from their 22 year old idol when they first watch soccer because they can identify themselves better with younger players. Messi and Ronaldo are exceptions there. Mbappe and Haaland are better examples. I have doubts that we will see a highly competitive SPL, which is equal to European top leagues, in the next three decades.

If Lionel Messi decides to finish his career in Saudi Arabia, that will be a huge success for Saudi Arabia as they would have succeeded in bringing two of the world's greatest players to play in their local League. Lionel Messi regardless of his age and the fact that he does not have as much energy as I used to is still a very good player to have in anything as he can provide world-class assist to younger players that are willing to make the run to score. If he returns to Saudi Arabia the rival battle between him and Cristiano Ronaldo will make the league one to always want to watch.