It's not a tradition yet, but it could almost become one. Every year, Cristiano Ronaldo marks the date of the Globe Soccer Awards ceremony, which has been held in Dubai since its creation in 2010, to indulge in one of his favorite hobbies: collecting individual awards that no one cares about (best Middle East player of the year, all-time top scorer, etc.). Over the past two years, the Portuguese star has taken advantage of his speechs to hit Ligue 1, to the point of annoying Adil Rami very much.
On December 27, he did it again after a first tackle twelve months earlier. « Is the Saudi Pro League better than L1? Easy, of course. I'm not saying that because I play there, I don't care what people sayrolled out CR7. Players should come and play there. Try sprinting in 38, 39, 40 degrees, sweating… All there is in France is PSG. They have the best players. The others are finished, that's a fact. I don't know why people are surprised. » An opinion timidly shared a few days later by Neymar, also barely disguised ambassador of Saudi football since his signing for Al-Hilal, assuring in an interview given to CNN that « the level of the Saudi Pro League is increasing and, from what I see, it is better than Ligue 1, which also has positive aspects. I've played it, so I know the subject. » So, seriously, which of the two championships is stronger?
Climate and great differences
Jean-David Beauguel, trained at TFC and who played around twenty matches with Al-Wehda between 2022 and 2024, puts his foot down: « When I hear Neymar and Cristiano say that, it's hypocrisy, bullshit. We know that they are muses. I don't hide it, I also went there for the financial aspect, but when you know everything they represent for football, I find it ridiculous to say things like that. » Especially since a year earlier, in September 2023, Neymar instead took up the defense of his old stomping grounds: « They said that L1 is weak, but that's where I suffered the most. »
When we had to race, many players were quickly knocked out, it's not the same way of working. I have seen matches with players who had cramps from the 60e minute.
First of all, the conditions are not the same between France and Saudi Arabia, where the climate has an impact on the way of training and performance. Cédric Yambéré, who passed through Al-Ettifaq in 2019-2020, remembers having known « two or three months of difficulty because of the heat and changing schedules, the sessions being in the evening rather than in the morning ». A difficulty confirmed by Beauguel: « When we arrive around August, September, October, it's very humid, so it's very hard. Even in terms of physical preparation, the Saudis don't really like running or going to the gym, it's not in their mentality. When we had to go shopping, many were quickly knocked out, it's not the same way of working. The heat doesn't help. I have seen matches with players who had cramps from the 60e minute. »
The athletic level, agreed, but those familiar with the Saudi Pro League also point out a very significant gap between the best teams and the others. For example, the 2023-2024 financial year saw Al-Hilal win a new trophy with 14 points ahead of its runner-up Al-Nassr and above all 31 units more than third Al-Ahli. A Paris Saint-Germain-style hegemony, even if the title race has the merit of currently being closer in Saudi Arabia than in France, with Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr counting the same number of points after 16 days. « In Ligue 1, the 15the or the 16the can beat 3e or the 4ethis is much less the case in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hilal went undefeated for 56 games last year and they put up scores that are almost impossible to find in France anymore.explains Laurent Bossa, head of football publishing at Canal +, broadcaster of the Saudi Pro League. I think that teams like Al-Ittihad, Al-Hilal or Al-Nassr could appear without problem in the first part of the table in France, or even play in Europe, but for the rest, it is not the same level of performance. intensity or homogeneity. »
-The advantage in France is that we have very tough and demanding national championships, even in the lower divisions. They don't have that in Saudi Arabia, only the pro league.
Cédric Yambéré also thinks that putting the two championships on an equal footing would be « exaggerated »estimating that at his time, a large part of the players in the Saudi first division had a level « more equivalent to Ligue 2 ». « Apart from Al-Hilal and Al-Ittihad where there are really good players, for the rest, there is no photoagrees Beauguel. Tactically speaking, sometimes there were these holes… It was a highway. There was no space management. In France, it's much tighter and there are many players and coaches who are surprised by the quality of the game and the tactical aspect. » For Laurent Bossa, this also comes from the fact that the clubs « recruit a lot of offensive stars and therefore defensively, it is weaker, because they are mainly local players with technical and tactical qualities below those that can be found in Ligue 1. »
A cultural and structural gap
As is often the case, it is a story of culture: football does not have the same place in Saudi Arabia as in Europe, nor the same past. It's not practiced the same way, not taught the same way, even. “We don't learn football in the same way between the two countries, I was able to see that when I arrived and I actually had a lot of difficulty learning m’adaptercontinue Beauguel. For example, the full-backs and wingers center on the ground and hard in front of the goal, we had to pull away to regain the ball. We sometimes did toros, we couldn't even make five passes in a row after five minutes. It's not the same pure technique that you can find among some amateur players in France. » The former Toulousain and Yambéré have still seen good Saudi players pass through, the second cites a host of them, without being too sure of the names, including Salem Al-Dawsari, captain of the selection. “The advantage in France is that we have very tough and demanding national championships, even in the lower divisions, continues Yambéré. They don't have that in Saudi Arabia, only the pro league. »
Laurent Bossa still considers that the Saudi Pro League “has been progressing for a year and a half”while the contract linking it with the encrypted channel expires at the end of the current season. « Initially, there were a lot of players at the end of their careers, today it is no longer really the case, he asks. Moussa Diaby, Steven Bergwijn, Gabriel Vega, Marcos Leonardo are far from retirement. There are also European coaches with a lot of experience, with a tactical culture which contributes to the evolution of the championship. » Currently, 35% of the players in the first division are foreign, while 11 of the 18 coaches are European (including Laurent Blanc and Sabri Lamouchi for the French; no local coach). “They should invest more in the external aspect footconcludes Beauguel, medical, training so that there are fewer big gaps between Saudis and foreigners once they reach the high level. They should above all invest in structures. » With any luck, Al-Hilal will cross paths with PSG next June at the Club World Cup, where neither Cristiano Ronaldo nor Neymar will unfortunately be able to perform.
No winner between Cristiano Ronaldo's club and Neymar's
