I'm sure they could get a few wins, but to stay up you'd probably need at least 10 wins. I agree otherwisee.
Cristiano Ronaldo - Much Ado About Al Nassr
- Thread starter Bastian
- Start date
The Saudi Arabia example is a terrible one. The goals were nice but that was easily the flukiest result of the entire WC.
I mean an xG of 2.27 for Argentina to just a horrific .14 for Saudi Arabia says it all.
Don’t give me that, I’m old, not even sure what that means!
Haha okay so it’s a stat for expected goals.
Put simply, Expected Goals (xG) is a metric designed to measure the probability of a shot resulting in a goal.
An xG model uses historical information from thousands of shots with similar characteristics to estimate the likelihood of a goal on a scale between 0 and 1.
For example, a shot with an xG value of 0.2 is one that we would generally expect to be converted twice in every 10 attempts.
So for Saudi Arabia to score twice off of opportunities leading to a 14% chance of scoring shows how fluky the result. Having said that, the goals were great to their credit.
I do agree with you that everything outside the EPL gets vastly downplayed on this forum. Cheers.
Makes no sense, football does not work that way. There have always been surprising results at both the club and NT level throughout the history. On another day, Argentina could beat Saudi 5-0.
Also, if we refer to your logic, Liverpool that just beat United 7-0 (which obviously is a one-off) can actually beat Saudi Arabian teams 10-0 easily which is obviously nonsense.
The logic I used though is that football is illogical thus making it highly likely that Al Ahly or Al Hilal would manage to stay in the EPL after a full season.
In theory they should not stand a chance BUT they are professional just like the EPL teams with fully professional committed players and team behind them. From what I have seen, technically all of those players are good enough.
Are you jealous of him or what? Show me some of the many players who gets a goal a game there?
https://www.fotmob.com/leagues/536/stats/season/18129/players/goals/premier-league-players
The top goal scorer has 15 (incl 5 pen) in 17 games (after match day 21). Ronaldo has 9 (3 pens) in 8 games.
So you found one player who almost has a goal a game. Nice
Nobody is impressed stat-padding in this trash league other than his few remaining fans desperately trying to make him relevant after a catastrophic year on all fronts.. Most football fans would not even know the best teams or players there.. If he was 20 and came up with these numbers playing in Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Brazil, Portugal etc. yeah a lot of teams might be interested not in Saudi league..
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Check out the list, he had 4 goals in one game which wildly inflated his goal per game average. He’s blanked a fair bit too. I get that you’re on his PR team but there isn’t anything special about what he’s doing for a team that wouldn’t even make the first division
Comparing records in some shit league with shit players 
And more nonsense like how people would have wanted the player to be signed if young player had same record in the league that would be worse than league 1/2. .
And more nonsense like how people would have wanted the player to be signed if young player had same record in the league that would be worse than league 1/2. .
Martinez will find it hard now not to call him up nor use him.
Ighalo is doing really well
It’s true though, it happens all the time. A player scores a goal a game over a small sample size in the Saudi League and gets swooped by a big club in England or Spain right away. All the time….Comparing records in some shit league with shit players
And more nonsense like how people would have wanted the player to be signed if young player had same record in the league that would be worse than league 1/2. .
Shit players who gets sold to good clubs every season mind you. Talisca was on many big clubs radar, but he chose the big money instead. Ighalo is old, but still did a decent job for us. I wouldnt say they are shit at all. Unless you think players who can play in the Premier League are shit unless you play for City.Comparing records in some shit league with shit players
And more nonsense like how people would have wanted the player to be signed if young player had same record in the league that would be worse than league 1/2. .
No matter how you dress it up, it's a shit league with shit players (relatively). Doesn't matter how many goals are scored, no one gives any importance to that record except Menaldo fans.
It's hilarious to watch all the effort to give some sort of importance to his record in Saudi league
He was poor in all the he started as well as the sub appearance vs Morocco
No.
Ronaldo is literally on record for saying he would never play in Saudi Arabia because he wants to retire with dignity. And now you have certain set of fanboys trying to make it something its not. Its a place just like the mls and Chinese leagues you go to in semi retirement to milk as much money from your image as you can. Of course ronnie being ronnie now bigs it up so he can pretend the goals he scores there are actually meaningfull to his stature.It's hilarious to watch all the effort to give some sort of importance to his record in Saudi league
I hope you write this as a proud resident of a middle Eastern country and not as a Ronaldo fan otherwise it would sound really really desperate.
Exactly, you have to give credit for the effort though. "Clubs would have signed the player if he was young and scoring as many in Saudi league" "Saudi teams hold their own in PL".
Wc 2006: He scored ?1 goal. He was decent vs France although did not score or assist. He also had a good game vs Iran. The rest of the games were average to poor but ok gor his debut wc.
Wc 2010: Dreadful in all the games. Scored 1 vs North Korea.
Wc 2014: Out in the group stages. Individually he was disappointing. I stayed up to actually watch him.
Wc 2018: Good performance vs Spain (the goals elevate it but his allround play typically wasn't great), scored vs Morocco but wasn't good. Wasn't good at all in the other games.
Wc 2022: He was poor interms of both approach play and stats. Benched.
I watched the 2006, 2010 and 2014 wc as a Ronaldo fan.
WC 2006: If you watched you remember Boulahrouz taking him out of the Netherlands game injured 33 minutes in, he wasn't 100% vs England. He didn't play vs Mexico and was subbed early vs Angola. So it was a pretty good WC for him when he wasn't injured.
WC 2010: Yes he wasn't good, Queirós was horrendous as a manager though and it's not a coincidence that with him Ronaldo had the worst spree in the portuguese shirt, his tactics made sure Ronaldo (or anyone else) got nothing out of the games.
WC 2014: He was injured. You can argue why did he play then but that's not his decision to make, obviously he wanted to play.
WC 2018: You didn't then watch the Spain game because Ronaldo was pretty damn good in all round play, he setup Guedes many times with his quick flicks and passes in the link up play in the beginning of counterattacks (we didn't have the ball much). Vs Morocco he was ok, still better than most of Portugal's midfielders and attackers except Moutinho. Against Iran even though he missed a penalty and didn't do much he was still better in midfield and attack than everyone bar Quaresma that was great. He was poor vs Uruguay yes. In short he was far from brilliant.
WC 2022: Was only good vs Uruguay. Was a sub in the 2 knockout games due to his reaction to being sub vs South Korea.
He never had a great World Cup, far from it, but if you look at the circumstances you can take some conclusions.
In 2006 we had the best team in these WCs and it shows, Ronaldo was pretty good even though he wasn't the only major figure in the national team. Lost tightly to France in the semi-final.
In 2010 everyone expected it to be bad. Queirós was horrendous and bitter towards everyone (continues to this day vs the Federation), he didn't call Moutinho that did a great season for no reason (this actually was a key trigger for Moutinho to turncloak and transfer to Porto as the captain of Sporting) and his tactics were horrible in general. Nani, our other star besides Ronaldo, got out of the squad in mysterious circumstances. Ultra defensive tactics vs Ivory Coast (0-0 draw) and vs Brazil (0-0 draw) and North Korea only folded because it was bad enough for us to break through. Against Spain yet another ultra defensive posture with the famous Ronaldo reaction to Queirós when he subbed off Hugo Almeida (that was actually threatening Spain's defence) to put another midfielder or defender (can't remember) - "Assim não vamos lá, Carlos" "We won't make it this way, Carlos". After the game another quote to show how things weren't good between them ("ask the manager" when he was asked something, maybe why we gave up attacking in this game, I don't fully remember. Also the quality of the national team had declined a lot since 2006.
In 2014 he was injured so it isn't surprising he wasn't good. The Federation had an horrendous preparation, with wrong cities chosen to prepare in Brazil, etc. The squad was lackluster and it shows when we struggled vs the USA and Ghana. We were eliminated basically because of Germany (this is just a fact I'm not making any conspiracy) - they had crushed us 4-0 in the first game with an early red card for Pepe and in the game vs the USA they knew they would eliminate us if they beat the USA marginally and we didn't crush Ghana. This ended up happening.
In 2018 we already discussed plenty, but as I said he was the reason we even got out of the group stage in the first place. Uruguay was tight but we didn't have any urgency. Our squad got much better since 2014. Santos should have left here.
In 2022 he was going through a terrible period and he has aged a lot, not surprising he didn't perform. Our squad is pretty damn amazing and Santos has its fault in how we did(n't) play.
That's why I said choosing World Cups to judge Ronaldo is cherry picking, just like choosing whatever competition to analyse Messi is also cherry picking for the bad or worst. They have been brilliant in all kinds of competitions and in Ronaldo's case he has shown that in games equally as hard as World Cup's (aka Euro or Champions League) he performed well. Therefore the argument that he didn't have good World Cups because he isnt good enough crumbles away. And let's not forget the special case of national teams, players can't move away from a squad and get better teamates the next year. In Ronaldo's case he only had good squads in 2004-2006 and from 2018-present while in Messi's case he had good squads until 2018, I would say the current world champion argentinian national team in theory (just looking at the players) is the worst in 20 years
I'm writing this as a levelheaded European resident who feels no affinity for Ronaldo anymore after his awful behavior regarding man utd.
But I maintain that the best Middle Eastern teams are probably better than what we all imagine.
The 2014 injury is an excuse used by Ronaldo fans for a poor world cup. I watched all their games and at no point did he look injured; he was moving perfectly well.WC 2006: If you watched you remember Boulahrouz taking him out of the Netherlands game injured 33 minutes in, he wasn't 100% vs England. He didn't play vs Mexico and was subbed early vs Angola. So it was a pretty good WC for him when he wasn't injured.
WC 2010: Yes he wasn't good, Queirós was horrendous as a manager though and it's not a coincidence that with him Ronaldo had the worst spree in the portuguese shirt, his tactics made sure Ronaldo (or anyone else) got nothing out of the games.
WC 2014: He was injured. You can argue why did he play then but that's not his decision to make, obviously he wanted to play.
WC 2018: You didn't then watch the Spain game because Ronaldo was pretty damn good in all round play, he setup Guedes many times with his quick flicks and passes in the link up play in the beginning of counterattacks (we didn't have the ball much). Vs Morocco he was ok, still better than most of Portugal's midfielders and attackers except Moutinho. Against Iran even though he missed a penalty and didn't do much he was still better in midfield and attack than everyone bar Quaresma that was great. He was poor vs Uruguay yes. In short he was far from brilliant.
WC 2022: Was only good vs Uruguay. Was a sub in the 2 knockout games due to his reaction to being sub vs South Korea.
He never had a great World Cup, far from it, but if you look at the circumstances you can take some conclusions.
In 2006 we had the best team in these WCs and it shows, Ronaldo was pretty good even though he wasn't the only major figure in the national team. Lost tightly to France in the semi-final.
In 2010 everyone expected it to be bad. Queirós was horrendous and bitter towards everyone (continues to this day vs the Federation), he didn't call Moutinho that did a great season for no reason (this actually was a key trigger for Moutinho to turncloak and transfer to Porto as the captain of Sporting) and his tactics were horrible in general. Nani, our other star besides Ronaldo, got out of the squad in mysterious circumstances. Ultra defensive tactics vs Ivory Coast (0-0 draw) and vs Brazil (0-0 draw) and North Korea only folded because it was bad enough for us to break through. Against Spain yet another ultra defensive posture with the famous Ronaldo reaction to Queirós when he subbed off Hugo Almeida (that was actually threatening Spain's defence) to put another midfielder or defender (can't remember) - "Assim não vamos lá, Carlos" "We won't make it this way, Carlos". After the game another quote to show how things weren't good between them ("ask the manager" when he was asked something, maybe why we gave up attacking in this game, I don't fully remember. Also the quality of the national team had declined a lot since 2006.
In 2014 he was injured so it isn't surprising he wasn't good. The Federation had an horrendous preparation, with wrong cities chosen to prepare in Brazil, etc. The squad was lackluster and it shows when we struggled vs the USA and Ghana. We were eliminated basically because of Germany (this is just a fact I'm not making any conspiracy) - they had crushed us 4-0 in the first game with an early red card for Pepe and in the game vs the USA they knew they would eliminate us if they beat the USA marginally and we didn't crush Ghana. This ended up happening.
In 2018 we already discussed plenty, but as I said he was the reason we even got out of the group stage in the first place. Uruguay was tight but we didn't have any urgency. Our squad got much better since 2014. Santos should have left here.
In 2022 he was going through a terrible period and he has aged a lot, not surprising he didn't perform. Our squad is pretty damn amazing and Santos has its fault in how we did(n't) play.
That's why I said choosing World Cups to judge Ronaldo is cherry picking, just like choosing whatever competition to analyse Messi is also cherry picking for the bad or worst. They have been brilliant in all kinds of competitions and in Ronaldo's case he has shown that in games equally as hard as World Cup's (aka Euro or Champions League) he performed well. Therefore the argument that he didn't have good World Cups because he isnt good enough crumbles away. And let's not forget the special case of national teams, players can't move away from a squad and get better teamates the next year. In Ronaldo's case he only had good squads in 2004-2006 and from 2018-present while in Messi's case he had good squads until 2018, I would say the current world champion argentinian national team in theory (just looking at the players) is the worst in 20 years
In this last world cup he was benched not because of his reaction but because of how poor he was in the group stages; It is not uncommon for footballers to react badly to being subbed.
As for the Spain game in 2018, I guess you define allround play differently to what I do. And no he he wasn't good in any of the other games in that world cup.
For me Ronaldo’s lack of on the ball genius means that he is essentially a great goalscorer whose allround play (even in his peak years) falls short of many of the best players to have played football. That is how I judge him, not on any tournament. But history won't treat him well for his world cup no shows regardless of the excuses you come up with.
Probably only in your mind, nobody buys that even many of his best fans. WC is the biggest stage where the elite shines (Pele, Maradona, Platini, Zidane, R9, Romario, Cruyff, Beckenbauer etc.) there are no ifs or buts, the guy had more chances than almost anyone to prove his worth in 5 WCs, yet failed again again. Even Stoichkov, Forlan, Hagi, Modric had more impact than him in a single or two WCs than Ronaldo in 5WCs.
Also, on one hand we have Messi who has been chosen as the best player in multiple WCs, Copas and Olympics, Messi does not discriminate among different tournaments. On the other hand, we have Ronaldo who was not chosen as a best player even once in 5 WCs+4WCs and other tournaments. The guy could not score or even post an assist in 8 games post-group stage in the WC, not to mention his terrible stats against the WC winning teams including Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, like 7 goals in 33 games..
Messi's 2022 WC performance resembles that of Maradona 86, and for some even better.. Ronaldo would not even be included in a top-50 WC performers list.
I never watch Middle Eastern club football. What level of English football would you say the Saudi league is comparable to?
Neither do I… I just don’t see why the football over there should be bad. Most of those countries keep their best players in their own league. They have money to spare so there is also no serious need for them to go abroad. The Middle East is crazy about football, they have great stadiums. Infrastructure looks awesome, full stadiums. It should be quite decent.
Ever since the club world cup expanded the Middle Eastern participators get decent results and they seem to hold their own vs the big European clubs, therefore my logic says they can beat several EPL teams in a full season.
I say from the entire Asian/African continents the teams out of this region seem to be the best. They’re already capable of beating the best South American teams…
You are basing this on a one off game. The quality of football in the middle East is far far off that in Europe. Right now the middle east is for players at the end of year careers looking to make money same as the Chinese league. Its only Ronaldo's ego that is making him take ot so seriously.
What is Europe? You mean the premier league because according to the caf Ligue 1 and Bundesliga are notoriously shit. You’d think none of the Bundesliga teams would survive a season in England if you read this place after European matchdays.
Anyway a lot of you have been trying to convince me of my wrongs, I’m not particularly impressed with your points and neither are none of you by mine. So we’re starting to go in circles and that isn’t doing anyone any favors… I’ll leave it at that amicably!
Europe means the top tier leagues in Europe including league 1 and Bundesliga.
Football being illogical doesn't mean it's highly likely that any of those teams could potentially manage to stay up in the PL, that makes no sense. The likelihood would be based on how good they are compared to the rest of the league, not the illogical nature of football.
If anything you're arguing against them being good enough for the PL by saying they need something illogical to happen to stay up.
We've come full circle ? People now trying to pretend the middle east has decent leagues. 21st century fans in a nutshell
The Saudi league is ranked as the 51st beat league in the world.
To put in context that's below the Scottish Premiership.
The average team is about as strong as a league one/two side.
None of those clubs would stand a chance in the Premiership and would struggle on the Championship.
Laughable to suggest otherwise.
To put in context that's below the Scottish Premiership.
The average team is about as strong as a league one/two side.
None of those clubs would stand a chance in the Premiership and would struggle on the Championship.
Laughable to suggest otherwise.
Where do you get the rankings from out of curiosity?
It is ranked the 19th best league in the world in jan 2023 in the KA ELO-ratings (in other rankings it is ranked between 25 - 55 in the world), so it is pretty darn good.
Here's the leagues ranked higher:
The Croatian 1st div, Austrian Bundesliga, Scottish PL, The Championship, NFL, Turkish Super Lig, Argentinian 1st div, Brazilian Serie A, Mexican 1st div, Belgian 1st div, Russian 1st div + the 7 big ones.
The gap to the top 5 leagues in Europe is gargantual of course, and there is a reason the only ever export to a club in the top 5 leagues in the history of the league is:
Youssef El Arabi to Granada for 5,0M EUR back in 12/13
Yes, thats the only one, not from Saudi Arabia, but arguably a good player.
Topscorers the last 4 seasons:
21/22 - 32 year old Odion Ighalo - 24 goals
20/21 - 35 year old B. Gomis - 24 goals
19/20 - 29 year old Hamdallah - 29 goals (in 27 games) for Al Nassr
18/19 - 28 year old Hamdallah - 34 goals (in 26 games) for Al Nassr
Hamdallah (Morocco) is an interesting one:
Olympic Safi (Moroccan 1st div) - 25 goals/33 games
Aalesund (Norwegian 1st. div) - 19 goals/30 games
Guangzhou City (Chinese 1st div) - 26 goals/39 games
El-Jaish (Qatari 1st div) - 20 goals/25 games
Al-Rayaan (Qatari 1st div) - 21 goals/25 games
Al Nassr (Where Ronaldo now plays in the Saudi Pro League) - 112 goals/108 games
Al Ittihad (Saudi Pro League) - 32 goals/36 games
He actually had an insane debut season for Al Nassr (18/19 season when he 27/28 years old): 49 goals and 11 assists/35 games (3036 minutes) - 1,45 goals/90 and 1,78 goals+assists/90
Still not picked up by a club in a better league, but it earned him 45 minutes in a friendly for Morocco though.
Could be the quality of the league of course.
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On one hand people are trying to sound as if Saudi Arabia's league is a farmer's league, which the last world clubs cup have shown they actually are starting to dominate Asia (much due to financial doping, though), and their top teams are actually well drilled tactically.
On the other hand people suggesting SA league is better than some tier 2 European leagues, which is not true either. Top Cyprus clubs would probably be a top team in their league, just to put in context.
The main reason is simple: the average talent of a saudi player is still inferior to the average talent of most European countries, which mean the John McGinn's of their league (no disrespect to McGinn obviously, just trying to make a point) are not as good as the John McGinn's in the european leagues. They still have a long term work to be done before they can claim their league as one of the world's top league, and they are trying to shortcut it a bit.
On the other hand people suggesting SA league is better than some tier 2 European leagues, which is not true either. Top Cyprus clubs would probably be a top team in their league, just to put in context.
The main reason is simple: the average talent of a saudi player is still inferior to the average talent of most European countries, which mean the John McGinn's of their league (no disrespect to McGinn obviously, just trying to make a point) are not as good as the John McGinn's in the european leagues. They still have a long term work to be done before they can claim their league as one of the world's top league, and they are trying to shortcut it a bit.
Celtic would probably win the Saudi league and be mid-table PL I’d say.