Saudi Pro League News
Comprehensive coverage, transfer news, analysis, and insider stories from one of the fastest-growing football leagues in the world.
A club with Karim Benzema leading the attack, Houssem Aouar pulling the strings in midfield, and the resources to compete on every front. Eight months later, he has left by mutual consent after finishing fifth, 31 points behind Al Nassr, with his most important player sold to a direct rival mid-season and his coaching staff already clearing their offices.
Al Ittihad announced the departure on Monday, confirming what Portuguese newspaper A Bola had reported a week earlier. The club's statement was polite and economical: a "comprehensive review and evaluation of the first team's recent performances" had led to the decision. Conceicao and his staff were thanked for their efforts. A new appointment would follow "in due course." The language was corporate. The reality was blunt. The most decorated club in Saudi football had just endured one of its most disappointing seasons in memory.
The numbers frame the failure. Al Ittihad finished the season in fifth place on 55 points, their lowest league finish since Nuno Espirito Santo's turbulent stint in 2023-24. Conceicao's record across all competitions read 22 wins from 42 matches, a win rate below 53 percent that would be unremarkable at a mid-table club but is damning for a side with Al Ittihad's budget and ambitions. In the AFC Champions League Elite, they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Japan's Machida Zelvia, a club with a fraction of Al Ittihad's resources. In the King's Cup, a semi-final exit. In the Saudi Super Cup, the same.
To understand what went wrong, you have to start with the appointment itself. Conceicao was hired on October 7, ten days after Laurent Blanc was dismissed. Blanc, the former France coach, had won the league in 2024-25 but started the new season with a run of results that the board deemed unacceptable. Conceicao came from AC Milan, where he had won the Italian Super Cup in January 2025, beating Inter 3-2 in Riyadh of all places, before being sacked after a breakdown in his relationship with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the club's hierarchy. Before Milan, he had spent seven years at Porto, winning three Primeira Liga titles and reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. The pedigree was real. The fit was questionable.
Conceicao's coaching identity is built on intensity, defensive organisation, and physical demands. His Porto teams were hard to beat, aggressive in transition, and relentless in their pressing. It is a style that works when the squad buys in completely and when the manager has time to embed his methods. At Al Ittihad, he had neither. He was stepping into a squad assembled for a different coach, inheriting a mid-season tactical identity that did not match his own, and working with players whose fitness profiles and playing habits had been shaped by Blanc's more possession-oriented approach.
Then came January, and the transfer that broke the season. Benzema, Al Ittihad's talisman and the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner, was sold to Al Hilal. The Frenchman had eight league goals in the first half of the campaign and was the focal point of the attack. His departure to a direct title rival mid-season left Conceicao without his most important offensive weapon at the moment the league was entering its decisive stretch. Benzema would go on to score eight goals in six league appearances for Al Hilal and a hat-trick against Al Kholood, while Al Ittihad's attack sputtered. The decision to sell was made above Conceicao's head. The consequences landed squarely on his record.
Aouar finished as joint-top league scorer with Benzema on eight goals apiece, a number that tells its own story about the lack of firepower available to the coaching staff after January. The midfield remained technically gifted but the cutting edge was gone. Al Ittihad won matches they were expected to win and lost or drew the ones that mattered. The 1-1 draw with 10-man Al Ittihad in the Founding Day round, when Al Hilal squandered 21 shots and 2.48 expected goals, was one of the few bright spots. The 3-1 defeat to Al Ahli in the Jeddah derby was more representative of the second half of the season.
The structural changes around Conceicao's departure suggest the club recognises the problems run deeper than coaching. Ramon Planes, the sporting director who oversaw the Benzema sale and the squad composition, has stepped down and been replaced by Franc Carbo. CEO Domingos Soares de Oliveira, the former Benfica executive who brought Conceicao to Jeddah, has had his contract extended, indicating that the boardroom strategy will continue even as the technical leadership is overhauled. The next manager will inherit a squad that needs significant reinforcement, a fanbase that expects a title challenge, and the shadow of a season that went wrong in ways that were only partially within the coach's control.
Italian media have linked Conceicao with Lazio, the Rome club where he spent three years as a player and which holds a sentimental place in his career. At 51, he remains a coach with the track record and the tactical identity to succeed at a high level. His Porto tenure produced consistent results over seven seasons, a rarity in modern football. What happened at Al Ittihad was not a coaching failure in isolation. It was a collision between a manager's methods, a mid-season squad upheaval, and a title race that ran away from the club before it could respond.
Al Ittihad's 2025-26 season was their 50th consecutive campaign in the top flight of Saudi football and their 98th year in existence. The club's history demands more than fifth place. Conceicao knew that when he took the job. The question that lingers is whether any coach could have delivered more given the circumstances: a mid-season appointment, a squad built for someone else, and the loss of the best player to a rival in January. The answer is probably not. But in football, probably is not enough. The results are the results, and fifth place is fifth place.
Conceicao leaves the Saudi Pro League with his reputation dented but not destroyed. He will manage again, likely in Europe, likely at a club where he has time to build and the authority to control his squad. Al Ittihad will hire again, likely someone with a bigger name, likely with promises of the investment needed to close the gap on Al Nassr and Al Hilal. The cycle continues. The Saudi Pro League moves fast, spends big, and expects results. When those results do not arrive, it moves on. Conceicao is the latest to discover that the league's ambition and its patience do not always operate on the same timeline.
A club with Karim Benzema leading the attack, Houssem Aouar pulling the strings in midfield, and the resources to compete on every front. Eight months later, he has left by mutual consent after finishing fifth, 31 points behind Al Nassr, with his most important player sold to a direct rival mid-season and his coaching staff already clearing their offices.
Al Ittihad announced the departure on Monday, confirming what Portuguese newspaper A Bola had reported a week earlier. The club's statement was polite and economical: a "comprehensive review and evaluation of the first team's recent performances" had led to the decision. Conceicao and his staff were thanked for their efforts. A new appointment would follow "in due course." The language was corporate. The reality was blunt. The most decorated club in Saudi football had just endured one of its most disappointing seasons in memory.
The numbers frame the failure. Al Ittihad finished the season in fifth place on 55 points, their lowest league finish since Nuno Espirito Santo's turbulent stint in 2023-24. Conceicao's record across all competitions read 22 wins from 42 matches, a win rate below 53 percent that would be unremarkable at a mid-table club but is damning for a side with Al Ittihad's budget and ambitions. In the AFC Champions League Elite, they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Japan's Machida Zelvia, a club with a fraction of Al Ittihad's resources. In the King's Cup, a semi-final exit. In the Saudi Super Cup, the same.
To understand what went wrong, you have to start with the appointment itself. Conceicao was hired on October 7, ten days after Laurent Blanc was dismissed. Blanc, the former France coach, had won the league in 2024-25 but started the new season with a run of results that the board deemed unacceptable. Conceicao came from AC Milan, where he had won the Italian Super Cup in January 2025, beating Inter 3-2 in Riyadh of all places, before being sacked after a breakdown in his relationship with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the club's hierarchy. Before Milan, he had spent seven years at Porto, winning three Primeira Liga titles and reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. The pedigree was real. The fit was questionable.
Conceicao's coaching identity is built on intensity, defensive organisation, and physical demands. His Porto teams were hard to beat, aggressive in transition, and relentless in their pressing. It is a style that works when the squad buys in completely and when the manager has time to embed his methods. At Al Ittihad, he had neither. He was stepping into a squad assembled for a different coach, inheriting a mid-season tactical identity that did not match his own, and working with players whose fitness profiles and playing habits had been shaped by Blanc's more possession-oriented approach.
Then came January, and the transfer that broke the season. Benzema, Al Ittihad's talisman and the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner, was sold to Al Hilal. The Frenchman had eight league goals in the first half of the campaign and was the focal point of the attack. His departure to a direct title rival mid-season left Conceicao without his most important offensive weapon at the moment the league was entering its decisive stretch. Benzema would go on to score eight goals in six league appearances for Al Hilal and a hat-trick against Al Kholood, while Al Ittihad's attack sputtered. The decision to sell was made above Conceicao's head. The consequences landed squarely on his record.
Aouar finished as joint-top league scorer with Benzema on eight goals apiece, a number that tells its own story about the lack of firepower available to the coaching staff after January. The midfield remained technically gifted but the cutting edge was gone. Al Ittihad won matches they were expected to win and lost or drew the ones that mattered. The 1-1 draw with 10-man Al Ittihad in the Founding Day round, when Al Hilal squandered 21 shots and 2.48 expected goals, was one of the few bright spots. The 3-1 defeat to Al Ahli in the Jeddah derby was more representative of the second half of the season.
The structural changes around Conceicao's departure suggest the club recognises the problems run deeper than coaching. Ramon Planes, the sporting director who oversaw the Benzema sale and the squad composition, has stepped down and been replaced by Franc Carbo. CEO Domingos Soares de Oliveira, the former Benfica executive who brought Conceicao to Jeddah, has had his contract extended, indicating that the boardroom strategy will continue even as the technical leadership is overhauled. The next manager will inherit a squad that needs significant reinforcement, a fanbase that expects a title challenge, and the shadow of a season that went wrong in ways that were only partially within the coach's control.
Italian media have linked Conceicao with Lazio, the Rome club where he spent three years as a player and which holds a sentimental place in his career. At 51, he remains a coach with the track record and the tactical identity to succeed at a high level. His Porto tenure produced consistent results over seven seasons, a rarity in modern football. What happened at Al Ittihad was not a coaching failure in isolation. It was a collision between a manager's methods, a mid-season squad upheaval, and a title race that ran away from the club before it could respond.
Al Ittihad's 2025-26 season was their 50th consecutive campaign in the top flight of Saudi football and their 98th year in existence. The club's history demands more than fifth place. Conceicao knew that when he took the job. The question that lingers is whether any coach could have delivered more given the circumstances: a mid-season appointment, a squad built for someone else, and the loss of the best player to a rival in January. The answer is probably not. But in football, probably is not enough. The results are the results, and fifth place is fifth place.
Conceicao leaves the Saudi Pro League with his reputation dented but not destroyed. He will manage again, likely in Europe, likely at a club where he has time to build and the authority to control his squad. Al Ittihad will hire again, likely someone with a bigger name, likely with promises of the investment needed to close the gap on Al Nassr and Al Hilal. The cycle continues. The Saudi Pro League moves fast, spends big, and expects results. When those results do not arrive, it moves on. Conceicao is the latest to discover that the league's ambition and its patience do not always operate on the same timeline.
A club with Karim Benzema leading the attack, Houssem Aouar pulling the strings in midfield, and the resources to compete on every front. Eight months later, he has left by mutual consent after finishing fifth, 31 points behind Al Nassr, with his most important player sold to a direct rival mid-season and his coaching staff already clearing their offices.
Al Ittihad announced the departure on Monday, confirming what Portuguese newspaper A Bola had reported a week earlier. The club's statement was polite and economical: a "comprehensive review and evaluation of the first team's recent performances" had led to the decision. Conceicao and his staff were thanked for their efforts. A new appointment would follow "in due course." The language was corporate. The reality was blunt. The most decorated club in Saudi football had just endured one of its most disappointing seasons in memory.
The numbers frame the failure. Al Ittihad finished the season in fifth place on 55 points, their lowest league finish since Nuno Espirito Santo's turbulent stint in 2023-24. Conceicao's record across all competitions read 22 wins from 42 matches, a win rate below 53 percent that would be unremarkable at a mid-table club but is damning for a side with Al Ittihad's budget and ambitions. In the AFC Champions League Elite, they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Japan's Machida Zelvia, a club with a fraction of Al Ittihad's resources. In the King's Cup, a semi-final exit. In the Saudi Super Cup, the same.
To understand what went wrong, you have to start with the appointment itself. Conceicao was hired on October 7, ten days after Laurent Blanc was dismissed. Blanc, the former France coach, had won the league in 2024-25 but started the new season with a run of results that the board deemed unacceptable. Conceicao came from AC Milan, where he had won the Italian Super Cup in January 2025, beating Inter 3-2 in Riyadh of all places, before being sacked after a breakdown in his relationship with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the club's hierarchy. Before Milan, he had spent seven years at Porto, winning three Primeira Liga titles and reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. The pedigree was real. The fit was questionable.
Conceicao's coaching identity is built on intensity, defensive organisation, and physical demands. His Porto teams were hard to beat, aggressive in transition, and relentless in their pressing. It is a style that works when the squad buys in completely and when the manager has time to embed his methods. At Al Ittihad, he had neither. He was stepping into a squad assembled for a different coach, inheriting a mid-season tactical identity that did not match his own, and working with players whose fitness profiles and playing habits had been shaped by Blanc's more possession-oriented approach.
Then came January, and the transfer that broke the season. Benzema, Al Ittihad's talisman and the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner, was sold to Al Hilal. The Frenchman had eight league goals in the first half of the campaign and was the focal point of the attack. His departure to a direct title rival mid-season left Conceicao without his most important offensive weapon at the moment the league was entering its decisive stretch. Benzema would go on to score eight goals in six league appearances for Al Hilal and a hat-trick against Al Kholood, while Al Ittihad's attack sputtered. The decision to sell was made above Conceicao's head. The consequences landed squarely on his record.
Aouar finished as joint-top league scorer with Benzema on eight goals apiece, a number that tells its own story about the lack of firepower available to the coaching staff after January. The midfield remained technically gifted but the cutting edge was gone. Al Ittihad won matches they were expected to win and lost or drew the ones that mattered. The 1-1 draw with 10-man Al Ittihad in the Founding Day round, when Al Hilal squandered 21 shots and 2.48 expected goals, was one of the few bright spots. The 3-1 defeat to Al Ahli in the Jeddah derby was more representative of the second half of the season.
The structural changes around Conceicao's departure suggest the club recognises the problems run deeper than coaching. Ramon Planes, the sporting director who oversaw the Benzema sale and the squad composition, has stepped down and been replaced by Franc Carbo. CEO Domingos Soares de Oliveira, the former Benfica executive who brought Conceicao to Jeddah, has had his contract extended, indicating that the boardroom strategy will continue even as the technical leadership is overhauled. The next manager will inherit a squad that needs significant reinforcement, a fanbase that expects a title challenge, and the shadow of a season that went wrong in ways that were only partially within the coach's control.
Italian media have linked Conceicao with Lazio, the Rome club where he spent three years as a player and which holds a sentimental place in his career. At 51, he remains a coach with the track record and the tactical identity to succeed at a high level. His Porto tenure produced consistent results over seven seasons, a rarity in modern football. What happened at Al Ittihad was not a coaching failure in isolation. It was a collision between a manager's methods, a mid-season squad upheaval, and a title race that ran away from the club before it could respond.
Al Ittihad's 2025-26 season was their 50th consecutive campaign in the top flight of Saudi football and their 98th year in existence. The club's history demands more than fifth place. Conceicao knew that when he took the job. The question that lingers is whether any coach could have delivered more given the circumstances: a mid-season appointment, a squad built for someone else, and the loss of the best player to a rival in January. The answer is probably not. But in football, probably is not enough. The results are the results, and fifth place is fifth place.
Conceicao leaves the Saudi Pro League with his reputation dented but not destroyed. He will manage again, likely in Europe, likely at a club where he has time to build and the authority to control his squad. Al Ittihad will hire again, likely someone with a bigger name, likely with promises of the investment needed to close the gap on Al Nassr and Al Hilal. The cycle continues. The Saudi Pro League moves fast, spends big, and expects results. When those results do not arrive, it moves on. Conceicao is the latest to discover that the league's ambition and its patience do not always operate on the same timeline.
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