It was striking that in a month when Neymar left Saudi Arabia after costing Al-Hilal hundreds of millions of pounds and playing only seven games in return, the Saudi Pro League’s clubs turned more and more to youth. The transfer window closed on Friday with a couple of big deals but there was activity before; it just happened to be quieter and less headline-grabbing.
January intensified a change of focus that has been taking place since the summer of 2023 when a whole host of megastars headed to the Middle East. As well as Neymar there was Karim Benzema, Riyad Mahrez and a flurry of other 30-somethings who made the move to follow the granddaddy of them all, a certain player who turned 40 on Wednesday.
“Many players dream of playing alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and I have now fulfilled that dream,” Jhon Durán said on Monday after making his Al-Nassr debut, perhaps inadvertently emphasising the age gap between them. At 21, the Colombian is very much a football generation or two removed from the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. The reported £71m the Riyadh club paid to Aston Villa for Durán is the second biggest in the league’s history, second only to Neymar’s deal. And as that Brazilian left Al-Hilal in came another, Kaio César joining from Portugal’s Vitória de Guimarães. The winger, who scored on his debut, is only 20.
The left-back Leandrinho is even younger at 19 and has signed for Al-Shabab, from Vasco da Gama. And Durán joins other young South Americans at Al-Nassr, including the Brazilian duo of Wesley and Angelo Gabriel, 19 years old and 20 years old respectively. With Neymar injured last summer, Al-Hilal also brought in 21-year-old Marcos Leonardo, another Santos old boy.
There is now more willingness in Riyadh, Jeddah and elsewhere to compete with clubs in the big leagues for promising prospects. This caused surprise last week in the Netherlands when the promising full-back Matteo Dams, who had recently broken into the first team at PSV Eindhoven, made the move to Al-Ahli. The 20-year-old was linked late last year with Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham and others, and it was widely agreed that he has a bright future in the game. The Belgian turned down a new contract at PSV to move to Jeddah.
There are a number of reasons for the shift. One is that it makes good business sense. Dams has cost Al-Ahli a reported €10m (£8.3m), another example of how less-experienced talents are considerably cheaper in terms of transfer fees and wages than the big-name veterans. Officials are hopeful that as the Pro League improves, young players can either make their names and/or improve their reputations in Saudi Arabia. And if they are eventually sold to Europe for decent money, then so much the better.
It is also no coincidence that alongside talent imported on the pitch, there has been recruitment from Europe’s big clubs off it. This has brought an increased familiarity with the young prospects in the European market and willingness to get involved. Michael Emenalo is the Pro League’s director of football having spent years with Chelsea and Monaco, while Al-Hilal’s chief executive, Esteve Calzada, worked for the City Football Group. Ramón Planes left Barcelona in 2021 and has since become Al-Ittihad’s sporting director. Planes has talked of wanting good young players to follow him to Jeddah. In January, the Tigers prised highly-rated 20-year-old midfielder Unai Hernández away from the Catalan club for a reported fee of only €5m. He was joined by the even cheaper 21-year-old Albanian full-back Mario Mitaj.
There is also simple pragmatism at play. Each Pro League club is allowed 10 foreign players in their squads of 25, a quota that most aim to fill. Two of these spots are reserved for players born in 2003 or after. Officials do not want the Pro League to be known as a retirement home and thought that such comments were unfair even before the recent injection of youth. As one official said last month, the league could look very different in the next two or three years.
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The signings do not all have to be around 20. There is an increased readiness to buy players at or approaching their peak. Last summer, the biggest signing was Al-Ittihad’s capture of the 25-year-old Moussa Diaby, also from Aston Villa – the Birmingham club have received more than £100m from Saudi Arabia in the space of just six months. Ivan Toney, aged 28, was also a major signing for Al-Ahli, who made the second-biggest deal after Durán this winter, paying Porto around £42m for the 27-year-old Brazilian winger Galeno. Al-Nassr, meanwhile, were ready to pay even more for Kaoru Mitoma but Brighton were having none of it.
And what of the veterans? There remains space for those with special meaning. Al-Hilal may have had trouble with Neymar but would love to sign a similarly big name ahead of the Club World Cup this summer. At the top of that list is Mohamed Salah, still the biggest Arab star in world football by some distance. The same can be said about Son Heung-min in Asia, and the South Korean would also be welcome in Saudi Arabia.
More and more though, it is about youth. How it – and they – develop is the big question.
Article by:Source: John Duerden
