Oil money, even Gerard’s baton ‘snap’

The Saudi Arabian professional soccer league, heavily armed with oil money, has recruited star players one after another and is also keen to recruit star coaches. While the names of coaches who have led the world’s famous soccer families are going up and down, English soccer hero Steven Gerrard, former Aston Villa coach, took the helm of R.T.Park.오래된 토토사이트

The British BBC said on the 4th (Korean time), “Gerard has been appointed as the Saudi Professional League RET Park manager. His contract is for two years,” the report said. Khalid Al-Dabal, chairman of Al-Etipark, said, “Gerrard’s joining will bring a leap forward to the Saudi league.” R.T. Park is a mid-table team that ranked 7th out of 16 teams in the Saudi League last season.

Coach Gerrard, who was an English football icon in the 2000s, is a ‘legend’ who has been active in Liverpool for 17 years. He scored 120 goals and 92 assists in 504 Premier League (EPL) career games. He did not taste the EPL championship, but he stood at the top of the European Champions League by creating a miracle in Istanbul in the 2004-2005 season. He also played 114 matches for England and scored 21 goals.

He retired after spending two seasons at LA Galaxy in the American Professional Football (MLS), and since 2017 he has walked the path of a leader. The following year, he took over as manager of Rangers (Scotland) and led the Rangers to an undefeated league championship in the 2020-2021 season. With this as a stepping stone, he rose to the Aston Villa command tower in November 2021, but was hardened due to poor performance in October last year.

Most of the Saudi league teams have foreign coaches. With the size increasing to 18 teams from the 2023-2024 season, three or four coach positions are vacant. Although no positive response was received, there were reports that Saudi teams had also made huge offers to Jose Mourinho of Italy’s Roma, manager Massimiliano Allegri of Juventus, and Marco Silva of Fulham, England. In particular, it is known that coach Mourinho received the highest salary ever for a football command tower and was offered the lead of the Saudi national team. The current defending champion, Al Ittihad, is head coach Nunu Espiritu Santo, who is familiar to Korean soccer fans. He also briefly took the Tottenham baton through Wolverhampton in the EPL.