The number of Portuguese coaches who will be in the next edition of the Saudi Professional League has reached five. After Nuno Espirito Santo (Al-Ittihad), Felipe Gouveia (Al-Hazem), Pedro Emmanuel (The Gulf) and Jorge Mendonca (The Groove), Luis Castro also went to the Saudi Millionaire Championship, and left Botafogo and Rio de Janeiro to go to Al-Nassr training in Riyadh, a team that has Cristiano Ronaldo as a “star”. great. The departure of the club from Rio de Janeiro, which has led Brazil with 12 contested rounds, is already official, the arrival of the CR7 team is not yet official, but it will be a matter of time until it happens.
The Brazilian press is talking about an irresistible show of victory for the veteran Portuguese coach, and he is advancing in numbers. “Globo” says that Castro will receive a two-year contract, with a salary of 5.5 million euros per season, a salary added by the Brazilian newspaper, and places him in the 10th highest paid technician in the world. The salary he received in Botafogo, with whom he had a contract until March 2024, and the club coming from Rio de Janeiro will receive compensation of about two million euros.
At the moment, the official note of the departure of the Portuguese coach and his entire team from “Fogão” indicates that it was Castro who conveyed “his decision to accept the proposal of a club from abroad.” Shortly afterwards, the club from Rio announced the appointment of former Brazil international Claudio Kasaba, who had spent the last eight seasons as an assistant at Lyon, to take over as caretaker coach, revealing that he was “in the market” for a new coach. The choice may fall on another Portuguese coach, Bruno Lage, who has already been linked to other Brazilian clubs.
This will be Castro’s second experience in football in the Persian Gulf, after he was in 2021-22 in Al-Duhail, in Qatar – won the Emir’s Cup, and later left for Botafogo, replaced by Argentine Hernan Crespo. After the first season in Garrincha’s team, in which he suffered strong opposition from the fans, Castro impressed them with a great start in Brazil 2023, with ten wins in the first 12 rounds, to open Abel’s seven-point lead over Palmeiras. Ferreira.
Money, then, was the main motive for Castro to accept the training proposal of Cristiano Ronaldo and all the other stars who have already reached and will reach victory. Also, according to “Globo”, the Portuguese coach did not feel appreciated for the work he was doing this season, in the sense that there was no proposal to extend the contract. According to the newspaper, which spoke to prominent football figures in Botafogo, Castro would have stayed at the club if he was offered another million dollars per season, even if it was far from what victory would offer him.
But there are other factors that strongly influenced the decision of the Portuguese player, who was head coach of FC Porto, Vitoria de Guimarães and Rio Ave in the Portuguese Championship. Victory is seen as a stepping stone to other challenges, namely choice. The “Globo” suggests that the proximity to CR7 at the Saudi club could be a factor in Castro being considered as national coach in the mid-term future – and the national team, for now, is entrusted to Roberto Martinez until 2026.
open places
With its scheduled start on August 11, the Saudi League still seems far from finishing its “stickers” collection. In terms of coaches alone, there are still four vacancies and coaches like Jose Mourinho, Marco Silva, Massimiliano Allegri, Christophe Galtier (ex-Paris Saint-Germain) or Tite are being talked about as targets for these Saudi clubs.
And the list of lured players in the Saudi League is increasing day by day. And not just the “stars” at the end of their contracts, like Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema or N’Golo Kante. Players like Ruben Neves, Mendy, Koulibaly or Kante are already confirmed as reinforcements and the next player could be Saul Niguez, Thomas Partey, Robert Firmino, Eden Hazard or any other player in European football. It was already realized that money would not be an issue.
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