A few years ago, after moving to the Saudi Pro League, Cristiano Ronaldo said the league had the potential to be among the top five leagues in the world, and yesterday, Al-Hilal showed that the league truly had that potential.
Al-Hilal beat Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City 4-3 in extra time, and it was another major upset in the Club World Cup. We had seen PSG lose to Botafogo, Chelsea lose to Flamengo, and recently, Fluminense destroying UCL finalists Inter Milan, but City losing to Al-Hilal wasn’t on the cards.
Al-Hilal are the shining light of the Saudi Pro League, and they have been a menace in this competition. Before facing Manchester City, they played a 0-0 draw against the Almighty Real Madrid, and it’s safe to say Madrid were lucky in that game. Now, after beating Manchester City, Ronaldo’s quote comes back to mind.
While the 5-time Ballon D’or winner has made a few claims that are quite outrageous, saying the Saudi Pro League is better than the Ligue 1 or the league is among the top 5 leagues in the world, he wasn’t wrong when he said the league has the potential to be one of the best leagues in the world.
He mentioned that with proper investment and infrastructure, the league can be a very exciting league in the next 5-10 years.
While this result works in favour of his claims, this win, for a few moments, closes people’s eyes to the reality that European teams are still heads and shoulders above teams from across the world, especially the Saudi Pro League. Ronaldo may be right, but only four top teams don’t define the quality in the league.
The league may be competitive, and Al-Hilal may have beaten Manchester City on one of the biggest stages in club football, but it doesn’t mean that they can go toe-to-toe with City in the regular season.
This win, in fact, shows that Ronaldo and Al-Nassr have a lot of work to do if they want to win the Saudi Pro League.
The Saudi Pro League is still far away from where it can be. It may be better than the MLS but not European leagues, and Ronaldo is right, they still need more investment and infrastructure, and maybe, just maybe, they can get to the heights he has imagined.
