{"id":80804,"date":"2023-07-03T17:30:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/07\/03\/saudi-pro-league-side-appoint-steven-gerrard-as-head-coach\/"},"modified":"2023-07-03T17:30:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T17:30:15","slug":"saudi-pro-league-side-appoint-steven-gerrard-as-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/07\/03\/saudi-pro-league-side-appoint-steven-gerrard-as-head-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Pro League side appoint Steven Gerrard as head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Aston-Villa-boss-Steven-Gerrard-696x392.jpg\"   alt=\"Steven Gerrard\" title=\"Steven Gerrard\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Gerrard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Former England and Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has been named manager of Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq.<\/p>\n<p>The 43-year-old had said in June he had been invited over to the country to \u201clook at a potential offer\u201d but that he would not be taking it up.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrard has been out of work since being\u00a0sacked as Aston Villa manager\u00a0in October last year.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Al-Ettifaq were seventh in the 16-team Saudi Pro League last season, finishing 35 points behind champions Al-Ittihad.<\/p>\n<p>The former England midfielder\u2019s move to Saudi Arabia follows a summer of heavy investment by Pro League clubs as several top European players have joined Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>Former Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, Wolves midfielder Ruben Neves and Chelsea trio N\u2019Golo Kante, Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy are among those to move to Saudi Arabia, with\u00a0Inter Milan\u2019s Marcelo Brozovic to Al-Nassr\u00a0the most recent deal to be completed.<\/p>\n<p>Fulham-managed Marco Silva has also reportedly\u00a0turned down a \u00a317m offer\u00a0to coach Al-Hilal.<\/p>\n<p>The trend underlines the league\u2019s ambition to be one of the top five in the world and follows a decision in June by Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns Newcastle United, to take over four leading clubs in the country. Al-Ettifaq is not one of those clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrard retired from playing in 2016 and his first managerial role was at Scottish club Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>He took over the Ibrox side in 2018 and led the club to their first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years in 2020-21.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrard then became Villa boss in November 2021 but left after 13 wins from 40 games during his time in charge.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"edysaVTW6o8\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Election Spending: Politicians advised to concentrate on development, not distributing funds\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/edysaVTW6o8?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Gerrard Former England and Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has been named manager of Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq. The 43-year-old had said in June he had been invited over to the country to \u201clook at a potential offer\u201d but that he would not be taking it up. Gerrard has been out of work since being\u00a0sacked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Saudi Pro League side appoint Steven Gerrard as head coach - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/07\/03\/saudi-pro-league-side-appoint-steven-gerrard-as-head-coach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saudi Pro League side appoint Steven Gerrard as head coach - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Steven Gerrard Former England and Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has been named manager of Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq. 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