On the evening of December 7, Beijing time, in a key match in the 16th round of the Saudi Premier League, Damac hosted Jeddah United, and finally with Nkudu's brace, Damac defeated the defending champion 3:1, surpassing Al Ahsa Conquest and Dammam Collaboration to rise to 6th in the league and enter the championship echelon for the first time.
Damac finished eighth in the league last season and was in the middle of the league, but this season due to not much money to bring in, the strength has not improved much, and at the beginning of the season hovered in the relegation zone, a proper fish belly team. However, as the season progressed, DAMAC continued to rise and improve its results.
The improvement of Damac's performance has a lot to do with the outbreak of the main striker Nkudu, starting from the 10th round of the league, Nkudu has scored consecutive goals, and has scored 13 goals so far, closely following Ronaldo in the second place in the league scorer list, with his advantage of being 10 years younger than Ronaldo, if he maintains his current state for a long time, it is likely to surpass Ronaldo to become the league scorer king.
Nkudu was born in 1995, a Cameroonian player, debuted in the Nantes academy in France, entered the Nantes first team in 2013, joined Marseille in 2015, joined Tottenham the following year, and his performance in the four seasons at Tottenham Hotspur was difficult to meet expectations, and he was repeatedly loaned, and finally joined Besiktas in 2019, and after four seasons, he joined Damac in the summer of 2023.
Judging from Nkudu's professional resume, he has never grown into a main striker, which may have a lot to do with his personal efforts and talent, and after many years of hard work in European football, Nkudu has reluctantly chosen to leave mainstream football to join the lower leagues.
At the beginning of joining the Saudi league, Nkudu did not show absolute strength, but as the league progressed, Nkoudu's ability was still revealed, as can be seen from the statistics, Nkoudu has made 15 appearances this season, including 13 starts, scored 13 goals, and averaged 087 with a total of 34 shots on goal with 18 of them on target and a goal conversion rate of 38%, which ranks among the best in the Saudi league.
In addition, Nkudu's pass completion rate is as high as 829%, an average of 20 dribbles per game, and considerable data in passing and breaking, although this data is not worth mentioning in front of many big-name strikers, but it can still be on the list in the Saudi league, which makes Nkudu enough to shoulder the team's offensive responsibility and lead the team to continuous improvement.
Although there is a big gap between the teams in the Saudi Premier League in terms of recruitment, the big4 team has introduced many top European stars with the blessing of huge capital, so that the team's strength has been qualitatively improved, and there is a big gap with other teams, but other teams are also doing their best to recruit, and the results are also guaranteed to a certain extent.
Among them, the teams that are not under the Saudi Public Investment** are Buraidah Cooperation, Al Ahsa Conquest, Dammam Cooperation, etc., although there is no large-scale recruitment, but the results this season have been good, ranking at the top of the league.
With Nkoudu's brave play, Damac has continued to win in recent games, and his results have soared, and now he has also entered the middle and upper reaches, and the future is promising.
The continuous rise of the above-mentioned teams has made the Saudi Premier League more competitive, the league has a stronger look and feel, and it is easier to attract the attention of the outside world, laying a solid foundation for building the first league in Asia. At present, the Saudi Premier League has surpassed some European leagues in terms of influence, operational norms and competitive level, and is more likely to become the world's leading league in the future, including the contributions of players such as Nkudu.