Past Nightmares Haunt Al-Ittihad as Coaching Chaos Looms Over the Saudi Giant

Changing winds are swirling around Al-Ittihad Jeddah again, after a former coach, the French Laurent Blanc, who delivered the domestic double—the Roshen Pro League and the King’s Cup—was swept aside.

The team failed to win a single league match under Portuguese coach Conceicao, stalling their title defense amid on-field and dressing-room crises that cloud the fortress.

Uncertain Future

Newspaper reports are already discussing the possibility that the club's management will take another step regarding the coach's fate, suggesting that Laurent Blanc's exit might not be the last departure the Al-Ittihad fortress experiences this season.

Moreover, speculation about a new manager has already begun; reports talk about who will replace Conceicao, naming certain candidates for the upcoming period.

Reports even surfaced naming Didier Deschamps as a possible successor, a choice that may clash with the club’s philosophy of building around a fixed core, even if Karim Benzema is part of the scenery.

Past Nightmare

But change is not always progress; it can backfire, as in the season before last when Al-Ittihad officials believed the crisis lay with coach Nuno Espirito Santo despite earlier successes, leading to his departure, interim coach Hassan Khalifa, and then Argentine Marcelo Giardo, whose tenure failed to improve results, locally or continentally.

As a result, the club, instead of contending for trophies, slipped down the league table and was deemed ineligible for next season's AFC Champions League.

Technical Crisis

Beyond the possibility of a repeat zero-season, the problem is not simply renaming the coach; there is a clear technical dilemma since before the current season began.

Ramón Planes, the sporting director, had warned before the season that the club understood its needs and the right moment to close deals, while anxious fans voiced concerns on social media as transfers dragged on.

This represents a major technical misstep, as the new arrivals did not participate in preseason; defensively, the club needed fresh legs to offset the uneven form of Danilo Pereira and Saad Al-Mousa, while Abdulrahman Al-Omari's move to Al-Nassr left a void, and the only defensive signing was the Serbian Simic on the final day of the window.

The club ignored the need for cohesion among the new signings, and the situation worsened when Blanc left, making Conceicao's job even harder as he started from scratch with a changed squad.

Conceicao faced a tough mission, starting from zero and also contending with another technical crisis: a dip in the form of stars like Karim Benzema, and variable output from Moussa Diaby, Steven Berghuis, and Fabinho, who were near-invariant last season and helped win the domestic double.

The crisis deepens with non-technical dimensions, yet it remains inseparable from the core problem: a trust deficit. Beyond their win over Al-Nasr in the King’s Cup round of 16, the team did not play a single strong or consistent 90 minutes, with a clear drop in quality, eroding confidence after a string of losses and draws, delaying a title challenge, and widening the gap after the Jeddah derby defeat to Al-Ahli.

Punchline: If you hoped for a quiet season, you were dreaming—this club runs on plot twists and popcorn.

Punchline 2: Their transfer strategy is so unpredictable that even the scouting app wakes up and updates the lineup just to mess with you.