The Saudi league has grown into the highest level league in Asia, and a number of local giants have brought in top stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Benzema, Mane and other superstars. These local tycoons are led by Riyadh Crescent, Riyadh Victory, Jeddah National, Jeddah United and other teams, all four of which have a luxury squad worth more than 100 million euros, which is history-making in Asia, even the peak of the Chinese Super League cannot match.
However, unexpectedly, the fierce competition in the Saudi league led to their failure to win the AFC Champions League, and Riyadh Crescent, which has a group of powerful big-name stars, won the Saudi league title, but stopped in the semi-finals of the AFC Champions League. The much-watched Riyadh Victory had a relatively unsuccessful season, with an unbalanced squad and over-reliance on veterans like Ronaldo, as well as Talisca and Mane, resulting in a lack of stamina and inconsistent results, only finishing second in the league and ending in the quarterfinals of the AFC Champions League.
Now in August 2024, Riyadh Victory has started the mode of preparing for the 2024/25 season, and the problem of squad imbalance has become even more serious. "German Transfer" shows that the whole team of Riyadh Victory is worth 150 million euros, but unfortunately the overall strength has not met expectations. In the early morning of August 9, Beijing time, Riyadh Victory and the Spanish Liga team Almeria started a warm-up, and finally lost 0-3 to Almeria.
In the game, Almeria, who was only worth 78.9 million euros, had 62% possession, and the shot ratio was 16-7 and the shot on target ratio was 11-4 compared to Riyadh Victory, and finally turned into a 3-0 victory. In the 35th minute of the game, Rajami scored an own goal; In the 40th minute of the game, Luis Suarez scored; In the 60th minute of the game, Montes scored.
After the 0-3 defeat, Riyadh Victory suffered a big avalanche of six consecutive warm-up games without a win, the previous five games were 1-1 Faro, 0-1 Portimão, 0-4 Porto, 0-0 Lucitano and 0-1 Granada. It can be seen that Riyadh Victory's results in the new season will be more worrying, the whole team is in a slump, and they will not have much time to run in the squad system. The schedule shows that on August 15, Riyadh Victory will usher in the semi-finals of the Saudi Super Cup, and on August 23, it will usher in the first round of the Saudi league of the new season, and the preparation situation is quite grim.
It is understood that Ronaldo only returned to the club this week, it is difficult to find the game in a short period of time, Riyadh Victory needs to solve the problem of continuous dumb fire on the offensive end, to avoid continuing to rely on Ronaldo over-dependently, you know, the 39-year-old Ronaldo scored 35 goals and 12 assists in 31 games last season, which is enough to prove that Riyadh Victory's offensive system is unhealthy and difficult to have a future.