Donis has won Saudi Arabia a trophy. Replacing him would need some explaining

You would think Georgios Donis had chosen a fairly persuasive way to keep his job.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia won the Gulf Cup for the first time since 2004. They beat the UAE by two goals to nil in Jeddah, finished the tournament without conceding and gave their supporters a trophy to celebrate at home. Two days later, we are discussing whether Roberto Martínez might replace the man who oversaw it.

Football does enjoy making a successful week unnecessarily complicated.

The reason for the discussion is a claim from Ammar Bahakim on Saudi sports television programme Fi 90. In remarks circulated by Al Riyadiya on 7 October and subsequently reported by Bola na Rede and Winwin, he said the Saudi Arabian Football Federation had reached an agreement with Martínez before the Gulf Cup.

Before is doing quite a lot of work there.

There is now a denial to consider, too. Asharq Al Awsat reported on Thursday that a source within the Saudi federation rejected the claim of an agreement with Martínez. The same report cited other sources saying an agreement had been reached before the Gulf Cup, while a source in the national team’s management said Donis remained in his job. These are conflicting accounts from unnamed sources, not an announced coaching change.

But take the claim on its own terms and it presents the federation with a rather awkward question. If a change was judged necessary before the tournament, what would Donis have had to achieve during it to make that decision worth revisiting? Because winning the whole thing without letting in a goal seems a reasonable place to start.

There is an easy answer to that, of course. A federation should be able to look beyond the most recent result. One trophy does not make a coach irreplaceable, and a good fortnight should not erase everything that came before it. Saudi Arabia have a home Asian Cup beginning in January. Whoever is in charge will be judged against a wider field than the one they have just beaten.

That is a perfectly sensible argument. It still needs to be made.

Donis’s case has substance. Saudi Arabia secured their fourth Gulf Cup title with early goals from Hammam Al Hammami and Firas Al Buraikan, then protected their lead until the end. Across the competition, nobody scored against them. You can question how far that takes them towards winning an Asian Cup while recognising that it is useful evidence about the team he has built.

Nor was he appointed simply to get Saudi Arabia through this competition. The federation announced his arrival on 23 April with a contract running until July 2027. On the terms made public then, the Asian Cup sits comfortably inside his job description. Replacing him now would mean abandoning that arrangement less than six months after it was announced.

His knowledge of Saudi football was part of the original attraction. The appointment announcement pointed to his experience with Al Hilal, Al Wehda, Al Fateh and Al Khaleej. Those are years spent dealing with the players and demands of the domestic game. Familiarity does not guarantee success, but it has some value when the next major tournament is three months away.

Martínez, meanwhile, is hardly an inexplicable name to consider. He took Belgium to third place at the 2018 World Cup and won the Nations League with Portugal in 2025. His Portugal contract ended on 8 July, following their World Cup exit. There is a substantial international coaching career to assess, with achievements that deserve more consideration than a dismissive reaction to a rumour.

The difficulty is explaining what he would improve, and how quickly.

Saudi Arabia’s Asian Cup begins on 7 January. A coach arriving now would have to decide how much of Donis’s work to keep, which players to trust and what he could realistically change before the opening match. His reputation would not give him any extra preparation time. Those are practical concerns for a federation hosting a tournament it wants to win.

And if the answer is to keep Donis, he needs to be able to prepare for it with some authority. There is little benefit in leaving a successful coach surrounded by talk of a successor while expecting him to make decisions that carry the team into January. The players have to know whose instructions they will be following.

Perhaps the reported agreement will amount to nothing. Perhaps the federation will eventually explain why it believes Martínez offers something Donis cannot. Both remain possible, and the absence of a confirmed appointment matters. Nobody needs to manufacture a dismissal to recognise that the timing makes this a peculiar discussion.

For now, Donis has supplied the answer coaches are usually asked to provide. Saudi Arabia wanted to win the Gulf Cup. He won it.

If that is still not enough to keep him, the explanation ought to be a good one.