Malang Sarr leaves Lens for Neom SC and a Saudi Pro League reunion
The paperwork is done. Neom SC confirmed on Tuesday that Malang Sarr has joined them, ending the defender’s spell as a free agent. The 27-year-old had been without a club since his RC Lens contract ran out in June. Two solid years in northern France sit behind him, and now the former Chelsea and Porto man is off to a fourth different league, working under Christophe Galtier, who took the Neom job last year.
He will not feel like a stranger for long. Neom, eighth in the Saudi Pro League last term, are stacked with faces Sarr knows from his Ligue 1 days. Marcin Bulka, Said Benrahma, Alexandre Lacazette. Throw in Nathan Zeze, the France Under-21 international who arrived last summer, and Sarr could end up next to him at the heart of the back line. On paper the pairing fits, their strengths covering each other’s gaps.
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A payday move after rebuilding his stock at Lens
Lens handed Sarr the thing he had been missing: a run of games and a settled role. A product of the Nice academy who passed through Chelsea and Porto without ever nailing down a starting spot, he used his time in the north to prove he belonged, week in and week out, in Ligue 1.
Leaving for Saudi Arabia at 27 says plenty about where the money is. The Saudi Pro League keeps chasing players in their prime, not just names running down the clock. Sarr becomes the latest in a long line of Ligue 1 exports to the Gulf. And Galtier, who knows him from the French circuit, almost certainly had a hand in the choice.
in your pocket.
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