Anyone remotely interested in the Saudi League?

Boyhood fan of Al-Hazel. Always look out for their results.

The erm Al Hazm Club Stadium has a great atmosphere.
 
I'm surprised anyone believes that Twitter/X video is actually Neymar in Saudi Arabia. It's very clearly not a competitive game.


This video is clips from his first game in Saudi. They don't let him run through to score and they pretty much try to bully him out of the game with hard challenges. It was a close game as well.

Im no fan of Saudi Arabia as a country or with what they're doing with their league. But I do think quite a lot of the games will be fairly exciting to watch, unfortunately.
 
Frozen Horse said:
You got me thinking about how strong English clubs were in Europe when we returned. I think your point must be based on English teams doing well in the Cup Winner's Cup on our return, which is fair enough: in the first 6 years back, English clubs won it twice.

However, it really was the 3rd rate European competition and (I had forgotten this) you only had to win 5 rounds to win it, unlike the other competitions. During the pre-ban years of English dominance, it was won by Scottish and Belgian clubs.

Our performance in the stronger competitions was abysmal.

In the first 6 seasons, no English club made it beyond the second round. For the last 2 of these seasons, English clubs "first round" was the group stage, but neither of our champions made it out of the group. Teams eliminating our champions included Rangers, Galatasaray, Legia Warsaw, Gothenburg and Rosenborg.

In those 6 seasons, a total of 13 teams entered the UEFA cup. The best English showing was a quarterfinal defeat, which happened twice. Teams lost 1st and 2nd round ties to the likes of Torpedo Moscow, Trelleborg, Trabzonspor, Volvograd and Brondby.

While we had our moments, I don't think it was a strong showing. When we faced Italian, Spanish, German or even Dutch opposition, we usually lost, though there are exceptions, notably Norwich beating Bayern. However, it's the fact that our clubs were frequently eliminated by Russian, Turkish and even Scandinavian teams that really tells us the standing of English domestic football at the time: we were middle of the pack, vertainly not amongst the strongest.
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My memory from that era, although i see your point, was football was a very different game. The money was more even and teams like IFK Gothenburg and Brondby could compete with the European elite of the time.

More teams dragged through competitions with one or two star players. Now to win champions league you need 22 world class internationals
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
My memory from that era, although i see your point, was football was a very different game. The money was more even and teams like IFK Gothenburg and Brondby could compete with the European elite of the time.

More teams dragged through competitions with one or two star players. Now to win champions league you need 22 world class internationals
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My memory was that we lacked the technique and fitness of the European sides. Remember Ravanelli's thoughts of our set up in 97. And we weren't unusual at that time.
 
rbmfc1985 said:
My memory was that we lacked the technique and fitness of the European sides. Remember Ravanelli's thoughts of our set up in 97. And we weren't unusual at that time.
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When Ravanelli signed, we were a side that had spent the majority of the last 15 years in the second division, and just avoided liquidation in that period.

I don't think we'd have had a typical set-up at that point, surely.
Established top flight clubs would have been closer to the advancements made elsewhere in Europe.
 
The_Tiler said:
Wow, that can't be a real game, surely? The defence just stood off him and gave up. Looks like they were 10-0 down after 15 mins and downed tools.

If I was that no.5 in the last 15 sec of the clip, I would have snapped Neymar on 2 for taking the p iss.
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Then the Saudi government would have taken you somewhere and made you vanish. I see more pace and action in my over 50s walking football...
 
sadgit said:
Then the Saudi government would have taken you somewhere and made you vanish. I see more pace and action in my over 50s walking football...
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Yes you do, because that was a charity game from Brazil in 2018, not his first Saudi appearance. I put the highlights from the real game above.
 
TeaCider said:
When Ravanelli signed, we were a side that had spent the majority of the last 15 years in the second division, and just avoided liquidation in that period.

I don't think we'd have had a typical set-up at that point, surely.
Established top flight clubs would have been closer to the advancements made elsewhere in Europe.
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We weren't that unusual. Most clubs hadn't moved on from their old training grounds until the late 90s/early 2000s. Look at where Man Utd were until 1999. The culture was the big problem though, even with the top sides, players didn't act like athletes.

That started to change towards the mid-late 90s.
 
I've heard enough podcasts and interviews from players in the 90s to know that drinking seemed to be as important as football. It's only when the foreigners started coming over that things started becoming more professional. The Euro 96 dentist's chair incident showing where English football was at in those times.
 
rbmfc1985 said:
We weren't that unusual. Most clubs hadn't moved on from their old training grounds until the late 90s/early 2000s. Look at where Man Utd were until 1999. The culture was the big problem though, even with the top sides, players didn't act like athletes.

That started to change towards the mid-late 90s.
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Probably Wenger's most lasting contribution to the English game.
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
My memory from that era, although i see your point, was football was a very different game. The money was more even and teams like IFK Gothenburg and Brondby could compete with the European elite of the time.

More teams dragged through competitions with one or two star players. Now to win champions league you need 22 world class internationals
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I think the point about Scandinavian and East European teams competing is valid and, for my money's worth, football was better for it.
I hate the fact that we know the last 8 of the CL are going to come from England, Spain, Germany and Italy, with occasional interlopers from Portugal, Holland or France (it's 10 seasons since anyone outside those nations made the last 8 of the CL).

Early 90s Italy was clearly the dominant league. In the first 6 seasons, they won a combined total of 6 European Cup and UEFA cups, and had 6 beaten finalists. England had 2 quarter finalists between the 2 competitions.
That didn't leave much room for anyone else, but France, Spain, Holland and Germany all managed their share of winners, runners up and semi finalists during that period.

There was some mitigation: foreign players were still limited, and UEFA recognized Scottish, Welsh and Irish as foreigners, which did harm some of our teams chances. However, if Italy was a class apart at the time, English domestic football was third rate until the late 90s. Those other leagues got more UEFA cup places than us too. Getting back to the point, it was money that brough players here and allowed our teams to compete again, not players wanting to test themselves at a higher level.
 
Frozen Horse said:
I think the point about Scandinavian and East European teams competing is valid and, for my money's worth, football was better for it.
I hate the fact that we know the last 8 of the CL are going to come from England, Spain, Germany and Italy, with occasional interlopers from Portugal, Holland or France (it's 10 seasons since anyone outside those nations made the last 8 of the CL).

Early 90s Italy was clearly the dominant league. In the first 6 seasons, they won a combined total of 6 European Cup and UEFA cups, and had 6 beaten finalists. England had 2 quarter finalists between the 2 competitions.
That didn't leave much room for anyone else, but France, Spain, Holland and Germany all managed their share of winners, runners up and semi finalists during that period.

There was some mitigation: foreign players were still limited, and UEFA recognized Scottish, Welsh and Irish as foreigners, which did harm some of our teams chances. However, if Italy was a class apart at the time, English domestic football was third rate until the late 90s. Those other leagues got more UEFA cup places than us too. Getting back to the point, it was money that brough players here and allowed our teams to compete again, not players wanting to test themselves at a higher level.
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I agree with that. But I think the changes in coaching techniques and facilities also made a difference. That was down to European managers and players coming to England and pointing out just how far behind we were. Something that only happened once we were able to enter European competitions again. It can't be understated how far behind we fell during the years we were banned from Europe - not because we fell backwards, but because we stayed where we were while European teams moved forward.
 
rbmfc1985 said:
I agree with that. But I think the changes in coaching techniques and facilities also made a difference. That was down to European managers and players coming to England and pointing out just how far behind we were. Something that only happened once we were able to enter European competitions again. It can't be understated how far behind we fell during the years we were banned from Europe - not because we fell backwards, but because we stayed where we were while European teams moved forward.
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I'm sure you're right in what you say, and I'm equally sure that the Saudi league will benefit from the expert input they're currently getting. Whatever else I might say about the Saudis, aspiring to be better than you are is not a fault in itself.

My point is that players and coaches in the early 90s were coming to England for money, not for some deep respect for the English league.
 
h_m_boro said:
Genuine question.

Personally couldn't give a sh*t about it. Couldn't care less if every football galactico end up there in the next 2-3 years ..... football will survive.

Is it televised? Will it have the worldwide draw of the PL, La Liga, Serie A? Doubt it.

Hard to see where it goes in 5-10 years......and will there be a risk players in the prime of the careers get seduced by the £££££ then just disappear, or don't like it but are stuck there.

It's a strange period in football.
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No
 
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