Nine days from today, we will begin the Zain Professional League, our premier league. The preparations vary from team to team, but most of them remind me of last minute shopping during special occasions. Shopping in haste always lead to buying the wrong items, or getting a size too big or too small. Finally, we regret why we waited for the last minute. As I can see, a lot of the teams did exactly this for this league.
Let’s take Hilal, for example, which waited two months to find a coach and waited some more for the coach to decide about the foreign players. Result? It was too late to change players, leaving them no choice but to keep two out of their four players and try to change the other two. This leaves them with one defender who needs at least one month to be ready and one position that’s still vacant. From the looks of it, they don’t even seem to be rushing.
Now, let’s talk about Ittihad. They told their supporters that they signed the Brazilian striker Diego Souza a month ago, but until this moment, the player has not joined their camp in Spain and didn’t even come to Jeddah. The alarming point is that Souza is the only new foreign player for Ittihad this season because they decided to keep three players from last season.
Hilal and Ittihad are not the only teams with this problem, many teams did not finish signing foreign players too. It makes me wonder why? Don’t our people know how to seal a deal or negotiate properly? Why does it always take so much time and, more often than not, a last minute regretful decision comes in effect. Just like another white shirt purchased but already there’s one in the closet or a pair of jeans too tight.
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