Cristiano Ronaldo is good at keeping Al-Nassr and Saudi Arabian football in the headlines.
“I opened the way to the Saudi league and now all the players are coming here,” he said earlier this week.
Whether he “opened the way” is debatable, but there is no doubt that following his arrival in January, the quality of imports has moved to the next level.
He must have been pleased on Tuesday when Al-Nassr announced the signing of Seko Fofana.
Ronaldo had said: “In one year, more and more top players will come to Saudi. In a year the Saudi league will overtake the Turkish league and Dutch league.”
The comments may have provoked huge debate but there is little doubt that any club in Amsterdam or Istanbul, or in fact in any league, would love to sign a player of Fofana’s quality.
The 28-year-old arrives in Riyadh following a spell as captain of RC Lens, the team that finished second in France last season, just a point behind champions Paris Saint-Germain.
The Ivory Coast international was last season an integral part of a team that qualified for the UEFA Champions League, making 35 appearances and scoring seven goals.
A year earlier his record was three more games played and an extra goal scored. It is impressive consistency. Overall, he played 112 times for the club and scored 21 goals.
Fofana has developed into a goalscoring midfielder; that much is clear from his stats.
This spells danger for Al-Nassr’s rivals. With the threat from Ronaldo as well as Anderson Talisca, who ended last season as the second-highest scorer in the league, there is some serious firepower at the club.
When you consider that Marcelo Brozovic has arrived from Inter Milan as one of the best defensive midfielders around, it gives those with
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