While the transfer window was open, the Saudi Pro League spent over €800 million on new players.
A lot of players have moved to the Middle East so far this year, including Karim Benzema, Neymar, Sadio Mane, and N’Golo Kante. But it’s not just the players who have chosen to move between countries. Several managers who are well-known in Europe have also come to the area.
At this point, moving from Europe to Saudi Arabia to coach is a very different task. There has been a huge amount of money put into the game. But if you compare it to other teams around the world, it’s still not very competitive yet.
Matt Monaghan is in charge of writing English material for Sports360X, a website about sports in the Gulf. He told Football Now about some of the ways that coaches from Europe might find things different when they get to Saudi Arabia.
“Really, it’s a chance to get in on the ground floor of a league with big goals.” It says that it still has a ways to go for itself. Cristiano Ronaldo and Nuno Espirito Santo have said that the buildings may not be up to par for a top-five league yet, but the plans are in place.
“That means that if you’re a manager coming in now, you could help build that in a big way.” You have to decide whether to stay in Europe with a team that might not be very good or go to Saudi Arabia to try something new with a lot of room for growth. Matt went on.
Al-Ittihad won the Pro League in 2022, and Nuno Espírito Santo became their manager that summer. In the summer, he brought a lot of big names to Jeddah, like Karim Benzema, who won the Ballon d’Or before.
After Ittihad lost 2-0 to Iraqi team Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya in the AFC Champions League, there were rumors that Nuno and Benzema had a fight. Soon after, it was announced that Nuno had been fired.
Reports say that Benzema’s dissatisfaction with Nuno’s teaching methods, not Al-Ittihad’s recent drop in form, played a big role in the decision. Do superstar big players have a lot of power at their new clubs, where their bosses value them so much more?
Monaghan said. “I think star power comes from football in the 21st century,”
“It’s not always something that only happens in Saudi Arabia.” We’ve seen players with that much power play for teams as big as Real Madrid. This was very clear when Rafa Benitez was in charge at the Bernabeu. It was really hard for him to get the changing room on board. But I think it’s interesting to note that Benzema got a hat trick and set up another great goal in the first game after Nuno left.
Steven Gerrard is getting used to life in Saudi Arabia. He went there in the summer and used to be the captain of Liverpool and the manager of Aston Villa. Even though his time at Villa wasn’t as good as he had hoped, Gerrard comes from a line of winners.
He won the European Cup with Liverpool, and his first job as a manager was to win the Scottish Premier League with Glasgow Rangers. The news came out in July 2023 that Gerrard would be the head coach at Dammam-based Al-Ettifaq.
Uri Levy, the founder of Babagol, says this is a very important move
“Everyone wins in this case.” Gerrard wants to start over and find a place to, you know, leave his mark on the game. I don’t want to say that he will have unlimited funds to do it, but he will have a lot of money to choose his teams and his strategies.
Along with the managers who have taken jobs in the Pro League, Roberto Mancini from Italy has taken a job with the Saudi Arabia national team, which many people would consider to be the best job in the world.
“The real big story is Mancini.” The man in question is a European winner with Italy. He’s a well-known person, so it makes sense that it would be important for PR reasons. But what they have planned for player growth is not as well known. It’s great that young players can work with Mancini and his team. This shows how far Saudi Arabia has come in football, Uri said.
It’s clear that Saudi Arabia is becoming a top destination for football players, which is why coaches are drawn there. It’s interesting to watch football in the Middle East right now because the players and coaches are getting better all the time.
