Marcelo Gallardo manages again: he will lead a combination of Arab teams with Cristiano against Lionel Messi’s PSG

Just two months after closing her highly successful cycle River, Marcelo Gallardo will conduct again. It will only be a friendly, but it won’t be any compromise, given that in that duel they will certainly coexist on a pitch Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. As they have done so many times in Spain and other parts of Europe, the two best players of the 21st century will meet this time in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

the appointment will be on January 19 at Msool Park, where Paris Saint-Germain and a team made up of players from Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr will meet, the two most powerful teams in the Saudi league. That cast will be directed by Gallardo, according to the coach himself in a video posted on the Twitter account of Turki Al-Sheikh, an adviser to that country’s Royal Court and chairman of the General Entertainment Authority.

The latter body is in charge of organizing the meeting, which is part of the season of sporting events that take place every year in Riyadh. It is assumed that the 25,000 seats at Msool Park will be filled that night. Not only due to the presence of one of the most powerful teams in Europe, but also because this match will be one of the first for Cristiano Ronaldo in his new adventure.

The former Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus and Sporting Lisbon player arrived in the Middle East on Tuesday and signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with Al-Nassr which will allow him to pocket around 200 million euros. Although he cannot officially debut yet because his club has the full quota of eight foreigners allowed by the Saudi Football Federation, a vacancy will be released in the next few hours (the Uzbek midfielder Jalaluddin Masharipov would be disassociated) and CR7 will be able to wear the gialloblù shirt for the first time .

No one doubts that the 37-year-old Portuguese star will be called up to the team that will face PSG and that Gallardo will lead. In that team there will certainly also be a footballer with whom the Doll He has already worked and with whom he shared eight consecrations in the River (among them, in the Copa Libertadores 2018 in Madrid): Gonzalo compassion Martinezwho also works at Al Nassr.

After eight and a half years on the job, in which he won 14 league titles, Gallardo last managed River on 13 November, in a friendly that saw his side beat Spanish Betis 4-0 at the Malvinas Argentinas stadium of Mendoza. Since then, and beyond speculation about possible destinations, he has remained far from the world of football.