Saudi Pro League

Yeah.

early doors you've got to buy players haven't you I don't Serie A looks a good place to go for starter teams there's a lot of decent players from what I've seen Saudi League looks good Bundesliga is always a solid Bundesliga looks good as

well the players tend to get overtaken quite quickly, but the very, very first couple of weeks, Bundesliga is always a great start.

But like you, I will base it off Pat Clarke and then I will build my team around you like that rather than going off to buy somebody.

The state-of-the-art expanse of the Kingdom Arena bore witness to a footballing exhibition of terrifying proportions as Al-Hilal delivered an absolute clinic to dismantle their opponents in a comprehensive 6 to 0 route.

In a fixture where every single cog in the newly assembled offensive machinery clicked with lethal synchronization, the reigning heavyweights of the Saudi Pro League provided a masterclass in modern tactical domination, suffocating counter-pressing, and clinical execution that left the visitors utterly shell-shocked from the opening whistle to the final blow.

To fully comprehend the seismic nature of this six-goal demolition, one must deconstruct the structural metamorphosis that Al-Hilal's tactical architecture has undergone.

Under the guidance of their technical staff, the team has transitioned from a side heavily reliant on individual moments of brilliance into a sophisticated, highly synchronized positional juggernaut.

I know he was on a decline a little bit, let's be honest.

And often when players don't have the same position as they used to have, they sometimes go to very rich leagues like the Saudi League.

We have seen it happen with Ronaldo and other players too.

But instead, he chose your league.

the

Mexican winger from the World Cup got the first goal he got the opening goal of the World Cup and scored a rake of goals for some team in the Saudi Pro League he is on the 30 man shortlist 10 players from PSG 5 in the Premier League there Bruno Fernandes Declan Rice Gabriel William Saliba and Erling Haaland and 7 in the Liga only 1 in Serie A that's Aaron Martinez finally I will leave you with this the Leviathan Award for Goalkeeper of the Year as always David Reyes there Unai Simon is there obviously because he won the World Cup Vazinha the Cape Verde goalkeeper is nominated for goalkeeper of the year that is about all we have time for folks

you can listen back to that in full in your OTB football podcast feed become a member and subscribe at offtheball.com forward slash join Newcastle boss Matthias Jeisler says he won't change his approach on the touchline despite being booked during last weekend's two-all draw at Bournemouth.

The German was shown a yellow card for repeatedly leaving his technical area, but he felt the punishment was harsh.

And people have this mistaken concept of what the Ballon d'Or is the Ballon d'Or isn't who the most talented players in the world are if not Messi would have won every single year there would have been any question about it it's who had the best year individually, you can add collectively if there are trophies accrued in that manner, but for the club and international tournaments.

And in this year, you have a player who in the Saudi Pro League, a league that has players like Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, who's also on this list and say what you will about that.

He was a leading goal scorer.

He was the golden boot.

There aren't many players around the world who, just based off that, you'd say, this guy is clearly better.

I'm not saying he's a better player than some of these players.

I'm just telling you he's got the tools and the skill set like these players, and he's done it at the World Cup, and he's doing it in the Saudi Pro League where some of these players are at, where some of these players have competed, and they didn't do it.

I know you're not in his head, but the former player in you, Yeah.

And it would be fascinating to look at how does this work in China? How does this work in Japan? Saudi Arabia? How much are the tickets for...

Saudi Pro League who is actually going or the season pass holders because I have a sense and you go to Italy you can like sort it all over Europe because it is the biggest sport that exists in almost every country and I'm curious to see how much it is reflective of the The business model, et cetera, et cetera, in the different countries.

My

enemy can speak to Saudi because when I was there, I wanted to see a match, but the dates didn't work.

An amazing achievement.

For a club from a league that still operates a salary cap, even today, up against the riches of Asia, the teams at the time, even before the big investment in the Saudi Pro League, they still had big-name foreigners on very, very good money.

The same in East Asia as well.

The way that the Wanderers won it perhaps wasn't too pretty and they got a little bit lucky in the second leg of the final against Al-Hilal.