Laurent Blanc and its sports director (Spanish Ramon Planes, former head of Tottenham and Barça) may have made the wrong choices. Two months after his superb title of champion of Saudi Arabia, Al-Ittihad began his pre-season preparation and Karim Benzema and his teammates took the direction of Portugal (and his sunny South).
Four matches were scheduled during this two-week internship and Al-Ittihad took expensive. The team also led by N'Golo Kanté and Houssem Aouar began with a 4-0 defeat against Fenerbahçe (goal from Youssef En-Nesyri, doubled by John Duran for the Turks), then chained by a reverse against the Vitoria de Guimaraes (1-3), despite a goal from Moussa Diaby, and a defeat (4-2) against Fulham on Wednesday, doubled from “KB9” being insufficient.
On Saturday, Al-Ittihad played a fourth and last preparation match in the Algarve for a new disappointment, this time against Portimonsens (2-1 defeat), a low formation of Portuguese D2, even if Laurent Blanc had this time aligned his replacements. All of his holders had the right to rest.
Laurent Blanc against Christophe Galtier
The Saudi Pro League champion returns to Saudi Arabia to then prepare a contested Super Cup in the form of a Final Four in … Hong Kong! Al-Ittihad will find Al-Nassr, the Cristiano Ronaldo team on August 19 in the semi-finals. Al-Hilal, who participated in the Club World Cup in the United States, forfeit. Al-Ahli, led by Riyad Mahrez, was drafted and will be a favorite against Al-Qadsiah, the defending finalist of the National Cup, trained by Michel, the Spanish coach passed by OM.
The Saudi championship will be launched during the last weekend in August. As a reminder, Théo Hernandez joined the beautiful team of Al-Hilal, now led by Simone Inzaghi, as well as the many French players exiled in Saudi land. Christophe Galtier is Neom's coach, the ambitious promoted in the elite, who is now counting on Alexandre Lacazette, Marcin Bulka, Saïd Benrahma as well as the young French people Nathan Zézé and Saimon Bouabré. Saudi clubs can indeed have up to eight foreign players and two foreign U21s.
