New season’s just around the corner

On Aug. 3, the Saudi Premier League will start a new season. Most of the teams are having summer camps, and destinations vary according to the teams’ budgets.
Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad, Al-Shabab, Al-Ahli, Al-Ittifaq, Al-Nasr, Fateh, Faisaly and Ra’aed did their camps in Europe, hopefully, to bring out the best for each team. Sadly for the players, though, this serves as their only chance for vacation during the year as well.
During this time, Saudi sides play with local teams where the camps are. This is in preparation for the next season which, surprisingly, will start too soon. Usually, teams that play with them are not the very strong ones, and the best one that Saudi teams played with so far was Manchester City. Hilal beat them by 1-0 in Austria.
The match wasn’t as exciting but considerably fair. Now, since they are in Europe, why can’t all the Saudi teams play against stronger opposition? I also wonder if these camps actually benefit the teams. Wouldn’t it be good to conduct a study after each camp? Because otherwise, they can put their money to better use like recruiting better foreign players or coaches.
Speaking of foreign players, I think time is running out on Hilal’s management which had already wasted two months getting a coach. And now, it’s the coach’s turn to scout for foreign players to hire. I wonder how long that would take this time. According to FIFA, Aug. 5 is the last day to sign players, so if the team doesn’t act fast, it could end up with the same useless players it had last season but hoped to sell at a higher price.
Unfortunately, investment in players should not be the main goal of the team. When a team recruits a player, it should have only one thing in mind — to ulitize this player and make use of his maximum potentials for the productivity of the team and not the idea to sell him for a profit. Right now, they are stuck with two Moroccan players from last season with astronomical monthly salary and, of course, who will not leave for anything less. With the best of luck, I wish they have learned their lessons, and Ramadan Mubarak to everyone!

— Follow me on Twitter: @alhamadbander