You might have seen the graphic doing the rounds. Most goals in 2023: 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.
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.
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 2023 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.
