Al-Hilal midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic hopes that the progress on the world's world's cup will change the perception of the Saudi-Pro League in Europe.
The Serbian was one of the controversial names to exchange Elite Voetbal on the continent for the wealth of the Saudi top flight, which in 2023 received a substantial cash injection of the public investment fund from the Nations.
During his eight-year stay in Rome with Serie A Giants Lazio, Milinkovic-Savic caught the attention of various top European clubs and as a result, his move to Al-Hilal was seen as emblematic for the changing priorities of some of the greatest stars of sport.
But after the 4-3 victory of Al -Hilal on Manchester City in the round of 16 of the club World Cup -and their undefeated campaign, which collected against Real Madrid and RB Slazburg, as a whole -there is a revaluation of the quality of football that is played in the Gulf -State.
Milinkovic-Savic, who played in the 120-minute Florida collision, hit back to Detractors or Saudi football and harassed no-sayers with a request to criticize after their amazing upset.
“Let's see if they will criticize us after these games,” said Milinkovic-Savic. 'We showed them that they are [wrong]The way it speaks about the competition.
“We have shown against Real Madrid, Salzburg, Pachuca, we showed tonight and I hope we will continue to show that it is not.”
Al-Hilal boss Simeone Inzaghi made a still astonishing switch this summer, in which he chose to leave Champions League Finallists Inter Milan for the Outfit-based outfit prior to the Club World Cup.
“The key to this result is the players, the heart they put on the field,” said the Italian. 'Tonight we had to do something extraordinary because we knew how good Manchester City is, we knew we had to climb Mount Everest without oxygen, and we were great.
'[Pep] Guardiola is the best coach in the world, but tonight we did our best and we earned the result. '
In the meantime, city skipper Bernardo Silva admitted that the pain of crashing the club World Cup is comparable to leaving the Champions League.
City came twice from behind, but was finally overcome by a filthy goal from Marcos Leonardo after 112 minutes.
“It feels a bit like leaving the Champions League, yes,” he admitted.
'Nobody wanted to lose, we are very used to not having vacations because the schedule is crazy. But when we are in a competition, we take it very seriously and we had a lot of ambition for this club world cup and we wanted to win it. '