Messi vs Ronaldo: PSG draws up a friendly in Saudi Arabia on January 19

Parisians are sure to make a detour through the Middle East this winter. Between the trip to Rennes on 15 January and the Coupe de France weekend (21-22 January), Paris Saint-Germain will play a friendly match in Saudi Arabia against the best players from the country’s two top teams. -Hilal and Al-Nasr, Cristiano Ronaldo Club. The game will take place on January 19 at the King Fahd Stadium in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

This could be an opportunity to witness one of the greatest fights between Lionel Messi and Ronaldo, and Kylian Mbappe should also be there to share the light with the two rivals. On Sunday, Al-Nasr coach Rudy Garcia said on the sidelines of a Dakar visit that Cristiano Ronaldo “should make his debut in Saudi Arabia on January 19 against PSG.” This will not happen in the Al-Nasr T-shirt. It will be a mixture of Al-Hilal and Al-Nasr. I, as the coach of Al-Nasr, cannot be satisfied with this match. For development, to see PSG, to see the great Parisian players, it’s really good. But we have a championship match in three days. From a programming point of view, it could have been better thought out. But it’s not very serious. »

On January 18, PSG players will train at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha, which was used during the World Cup in Qatar. A way to “meet your fans from Qatar and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region,” according to a press release from the capital club.

The Parisian team, its women’s section or the handball team have already made several rounds in Qatar. On the other hand, the re-enactment of the meeting on Saudi soil could come as a surprise, given the tense diplomatic relations between the two neighboring countries. They warmed up during the Doha World Cup and then cooled down due to the audio-visual war that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been involved in for years. During the World Cup, Saudi Arabia blocked the broadcast of 42 matches of BeIN Sport, a Qatari channel whose president is… Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of PSG.