Pusic: Victim of a Strategic Suicide at Al-Ahli Saudi

The final whistle blew at the stadium in South Africa, and Marino Pusic stood motionless on the touchline. Mamelodi Sundowns players flooded the pitch celebrating as if they had just won a final – in fact, the 2-1 victory in the FIFA Intercontinental Cup pushed them deeper into history. On the other side, Al-Ahli Saudi players quietly walked down the tunnel. Heads bowed. No one said a word. That night reflected the moment a team fell apart, and all eyes turned to one solitary man: the Dutch coach who had just been thrown into the eye of the storm. Thousands of kilometers to the northeast, on Saudi football forums, a storm was brewing. Angry hashtags, demands for dismissal, and curses flooded social media. Three league defeats in the Saudi Pro League plus elimination from the Intercontinental Cup in the first round – more than enough evidence to convict a coach, if you only look at the scorelines. But I look at something else. I look at the calendar. And the calendar is telling a completely different story from the one those furious comments are spreading. Al-Ahli Saudi is not an ordinary club. As one of the big four of Saudi football alongside Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, and Al-Ittihad, the Jeddah-based club possesses a glorious history and a fervent fan base. Under the financial backing of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund – which has poured billions into global sports – Al-Ahli is expected to compete for the title every season. Recruiting big-name stars is a minimum requirement. A start with three consecutive league defeats is not just unacceptable; it is an insult to the club's tradition. But amid the torrent of criticism aimed at Pusic, one crucial detail is being forgotten: he only took charge a few days before the season kicked off. A few days! While rivals had eight to ten weeks of preparation with friendlies, tactical sessions, fitness testing, and lineup experiments, Pusic inherited a squad he was completely unfamiliar with – not knowing who the dressing-room leaders were, who was mentally fragile, who lacked fitness foundations – and was asked to win immediately. The rushed appointment was a reckless decision by the board, and now Pusic alone is paying the price for that haste. What is remarkable is the board's reaction to public pressure. According to the Nadina program, the Al-Ahli board stated they have no intention whatsoever of sacking Pusic. Instead, they want to hand him even more authority and support. They understand that dismissing a new coach after less than a month in charge would set a dangerous precedent – a signal that the club has no long-term strategy, and that anyone sitting in the hot seat can be pushed out after just a few defeats. The contradiction between fan fury and board patience raises a big question: who is right, and who is seeing further? Let me analyze the three defeats – a statistic being elevated into the sole piece of evidence for conviction. In the current Saudi Pro League season, three early defeats are a worrying signal, but not a disaster. The league runs 34 rounds. A recovery run of five or six consecutive wins could bring Al-Ahli back into contention. The problem is not the points lost, but the way the team is losing them: lack of organization, lack of tactical identity, lack of connection between the lines. Fans see chaos and conclude the coach is incompetent. They do not ask: why did the team fall into this state in the first place? The answer lies in the small print: Pusic took over days before the season began. When you enter a battle without having seen the map, defeat is not surprising. In 22 years of following and writing about football – from my early days as a journalist in a new wave of media to hundreds of hours watching match footage in a dark room – I can honestly say: I have never seen a coach succeed while starting the job days before the season. Tactics are not software that can be installed overnight. They need time to seep through training sessions. Dressing-room relationships need time to build trust. Fitness needs time to peak. Even a basic pressing scheme needs at least four to six weeks for players to understand their positions and each other. Pusic was deprived of all of that. He was brought to a prepared table, but no one had yet cooked the meal. The defeat to Sundowns is the clearest illustration. Mamelodi Sundowns – a South African club with rich tradition, multiple CAF Champions League titles – possess a solid structure built over many years with a coach who knows every individual in his hands. They have identity, stability, and time. Al-Ahli is the opposite: a collection of talented individuals not yet organized, not yet led, not yet shaped. Comparing these two teams in the current context is like comparing a smoothly running machine to a set of gears not yet assembled. The 2-1 result does not reflect a difference in class; it reflects a difference in preparation. So the real question should not be: does Pusic deserve to be sacked? The right question is: why did Al-Ahli's board put Pusic in a position destined to fail from the start? The rushed appointment just before the season reveals deep instability in the club's management structure. Perhaps the previous coach left suddenly due to internal conflict. Perhaps the board had no succession plan. Perhaps they tried to recruit a bigger name – a European tactical philosopher with an impressive CV – and failed at the last minute, forcing them to choose Pusic as a stopgap in a cornered position. Whatever the scenario, the systemic error clearly does not belong to the newly arrived coach – a man merely doing the job assigned to him under impossible conditions. This is where I remember a night in 2026, when the COVID-19 pandemic froze global football. I sat in a small room in Chengdu, receiving a call at 2 a.m. from a backup goalkeeper at Guangzhou – nicknamed Fat Cat. He cried about his fear of being forgotten by the club, about training days in empty stadiums, about feeling like a faint shadow in the system. That call taught me a simple truth: in modern football, we condemn people too quickly, while systemic errors roam free outside the media whirlwind. Pusic is carrying a massive responsibility – and I dare say most of that responsibility should belong to those who placed him in this position with almost zero preparation time. Of course, I am not saying Pusic is innocent. He may have made mistakes in team selection and in handling specific situations. But with only four matches – and a completely new squad – demanding a miracle is irrational. In modern football, the most successful coaches are given time: Jurgen Klopp needed three years to turn Liverpool into champions; Mikel Arteta needed two years to build Arsenal into a machine. Even Pep Guardiola – considered the best of his generation – needed a first season to acclimate to Manchester City before dominating the Premier League. All were given time, and they turned time into victory. Why is Pusic being deprived of that right after just a few weeks? The difference lies in Saudi football culture: a football ecosystem undergoing a revolution with unlimited money, where patience is seen as weakness and sacking coaches has become an instinctive reaction rather than a strategic decision. But let me play devil's advocate with my own argument, following a brutally honest self-checking habit I have built over the years. Am I being too lenient with Pusic? Possibly. A truly good coach, even in the worst conditions, should leave at least one visible mark after four matches: a subtle tactical adjustment, a bold personnel decision, a sign of improvement in how the team transitions. If nothing changes from game to game, that could be a sign of incompetence – not lack of time. And there is the financial cost: Al-Ahli's board may simply be avoiding a massive contract compensation for Pusic. Their patience may not be strategic vision but a cold cost calculation. The Dutch approach is also a big question: the philosophy of total football does not always translate to the Middle East, where the pressure for immediate results overrides everything. Pusic may need time not just to build a style, but to understand Saudi football culture – a lesson harder than any tactical diagram. I observe from the edge of the game, where truth is not obscured by the spotlight. They call me a heretic, but I only see what they do not want to see. Four matches is too small a sample to convict any coach – especially one who started days before the season. Come back after ten more matches. If Al-Ahli remains mired in crisis, place all blame on Pusic. But if they rise – and I believe in that scenario – remember that the board chose courage over cowardice on a night when no one celebrated with them. History will record that. Football always moves in cycles, and in the end, the patient are the ones who win.