Unexpected problems of Cristiano, Neymar and other players who left for Saudi Arabia

The world soccer map changed abruptly this year. Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival in Saudi Arabia shocked everyone, not only because one of the sport's biggest stars decided to leave Europe for the first time in his career to start an experience in a non-traditional league, but also because of the multi-million dollar salary he was offered by Al-Nassr: more than $200 million per year.

CR7's path was followed last summer by many other stars. Sadio Mane, Aymeric Laporte and Marcelo Brozovic became teammates of the Portuguese striker. Neymar, Bono, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Aleksander Mitrovic joined Al-Hilal; Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kanté and Jota signed for Al-Ittihad; Riyad Mahrez, Roberto Firmino and Allan Saint-Maximine went to Al-Ahli and Jordan Henderson joined coach Steven Gerrard at Al-Ettifaq.

All of them were tempted with incredible offers that far exceeded what they were making at their European clubs, so they must undoubtedly be pleased with that. However, not everything has turned out well for them since they arrived at Saudi Arabia.

According to the specialized website Transfermarkt, most of the players who signed this year with Saudi Arabian teams have lost market value in just a few months. In fact, the value of the Pro League thanks to all the signings they made during the last transfer window was $1293 million three months ago, but is now down to $1085 million. And it could be even worse in the future.

Who are the players affected by this?

Neymar, in part because of his knee injury, has dropped his market value tremendously. It is now $49 million, far less than when he was at Paris Saint-Germain. And the same has happened with players like Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Sergej Milinkovic Savic. Others, such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, had already lost value previously and now stayed the same.