Marino Pusic Sacked by Al-Ahli After 6–1 Defeat to Al-Shabab
The night Al-Ahli were taken apart 6–1 by Al-Shabab in Riyadh may be remembered less for the scoreline and more for what happened on the touchline.
According to Saudi newspaper Al-Maidan, Dutch coach Marino Pusic was dismissed while the match was still being played, a brutal, real-time verdict on a mini-clasico humiliation at SHG Arena in the twelfth round of the Roshn League.
No cooling-off period. No late-night board meeting. The decision, the paper reports, came as the goals kept flying in.
Sacked in the Storm
Al-Shabab’s thrashing of Al-Ahli was the kind of defeat that shakes a club’s foundations. Six conceded, one scored, and a performance that apparently pushed the hierarchy past the point of patience.
Al-Maidan reports that the board moved during the game to remove Pusic, the man they had entrusted with the project only months earlier. The final whistle did not bring clarity; it merely confirmed what had already been set in motion.
Pusic had arrived at the start of the current season, succeeding German coach Matthias Jaissle, and his numbers were not disastrous on paper: 17 matches in charge, 11 wins, five defeats, one draw. Respectable, even competitive.
But in Saudi football’s new era, one heavy loss in a high-profile clash can outweigh a stack of earlier victories.
Ben Zekri Steps Into the Frame
Once the decision was made, attention inside the club swung quickly to the next man up.
Al-Maidan reports that Al-Ahli’s management immediately began sounding out candidates, with one board member putting forward the name of Algerian coach Noureddine Ben Zekri, a familiar figure in the Saudi game.
It was not left as idle talk. The newspaper reveals that Al-Ahli made actual contact with Ben Zekri, who gave his initial approval to the idea of taking over. He is now waiting for further discussions in the coming period as the club weighs its options.
Ben Zekri’s name carries weight in the league. The former Al-Shabab coach has already been linked with several Roshn League sides this season, most notably Abha, underlining how his stock has quietly risen in the background while bigger names dominated headlines.
Conceicao on the List, But No Move Yet
Ben Zekri is not the only figure on Al-Ahli’s radar.
The same report states that Portugal’s Sergio Conceicao, the former Al-Ittihad head coach, has also been proposed as a candidate to lead the team. His profile, experience and previous stint in Saudi Arabia make him a powerful alternative on paper.
For now, though, that is where it remains: on paper. According to Al-Maidan, Al-Ahli have not yet taken any concrete steps towards Conceicao. No official contact, no negotiations, just a name on a shortlist at a club suddenly forced into a decision it perhaps did not expect to make so soon.
A Project Interrupted
Pusic’s tenure ends abruptly, not with a slow fade but with a jolt.
Seventeen games. Eleven wins. A single draw. Five defeats, the last of them the most damaging by far. Those numbers tell one story; the 6–1 at SHG Arena tells another, louder one, the kind that boards listen to when pressure builds and expectations rise.
Al-Ahli now stand at a crossroads: turn to the experienced, league-tested Ben Zekri, already receptive and waiting for talks, or push for a bigger statement with a coach like Conceicao, whose name alone changes the temperature around a club.
The decision will not just shape the rest of this season. In a league moving at breakneck speed, it could define where Al-Ahli sit in the new Saudi order.
