You might have seen the graphic doing the rounds. Most goals in 2024: Cristiano Ronaldo
(54), Harry Kane (52), Kylian 🌧️ Mbappé (52), Erling Haaland (50). Absolutely no mention
of the league in which those goals were scored.
Ronaldo has been netting 🌧️ regularly in
Saudi Arabia but that says more about the standard of the league than anything else.
There are teams 🌧️ in there on a similar level to fourth and fifth tier sides in England,
but of course, Ronaldo is more 🌧️ than happy for his own name to be plastered everywhere
as the leading scorer in the calendar year.
Everyone can see 🌧️ the reality. Kane, Mbappé
and Haaland are playing at a different level these days, both in the sense that they 🌧️ as
individuals are far superior, but also that the leagues they play in are actually worth
taking notice of.
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Nevertheless, Ronaldo was
more than happy to speak about himself earlier this 🌧️ week as his Al Nassr side beat Al
Taawoon 4-1, still leaving it seven points off the top spot. That 🌧️ is taken by Neymar's
Al Hilal.
"I'm happy because when I made the decision to come here nobody believed what
I 🌧️ said," Ronaldo told the Saudi state broadcaster SSC Sport post-match, after netting a
fourth goal late in stoppage time. "But 🌧️ that is the past. It doesn't matter
anymore.
"The most important is that the league has grown and that players want 🌧️ to come
because they know the league is competitive and the whole world is watching now. If big
players want 🌧️ to come, they will be very welcome."
Just where do you start with those
comments? No one truly believes now that 🌧️ the Saudi league is anything close to being
the pinnacle of the game. That is very much still the present 🌧️ rather than the past —
and, in fact, it is harder to make the case for moving there now than 🌧️ it would have
been last summer. Ronaldo, clearly, couldn't say anything different to the state
broadcaster, but it does smack 🌧️ of words that he is using to try and convince himself as
much as them.
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The league has grown to some extent, but it 🌧️ is
still a mile away from even the lesser divisions in Europe, let alone the Champions
League, despite the riches 🌧️ on offer. There are big players there, but none who had
better offers from elsewhere.
As for the claim that the 🌧️ 'world is watching', that could
not be further from the truth. How many of Ronaldo's 52 goals in 2024 could 🌧️ you
describe? Can you picture anything that Sadio Mané has done since he moved there? Even
Neymar, who it would 🌧️ be easy to circulate social media clips of, has barely been seen —
and while that's partly because he's suffered 🌧️ an ACL injury, it speaks volumes that
this came as news to me.
It will take so long for the Saudi 🌧️ league to grow that even if
the investment is sustained long enough to bring it up to a level where 🌧️ a conversation
about the best teams being involved in the Champions League could even be remotely
sensible from a sporting 🌧️ perspective, Ronaldo — and several others who have moved for a
final payday — will be long gone.
And that is 🌧️ exactly why this is the latest Saudi
nonsense that Mohamed Salah should simply ignore. The Egyptian will soon be jetting 🌧️ off
to AFCON, but a permanent departure from Liverpool should not be on the agenda. Moving
to the Middle East, 🌧️ no matter what Ronaldo might try and claim, would be a death knell
to the career of a superstar who 🌧️ remains at his peak.
