England striker Ivan Toney recently gave an exclusive interview to Camel Live. Toney is well aware of the chatter from the outside world. Ever since he left the Premier League for Saudi Arabia over a year ago, many people have been talking about him—and that’s beyond doubt. The striker later claimed an AFC Champions League winner’s medal and scored 35 goals for Al-Ittihad, and even though he was sidelined during England’s latest round of World Cup qualifiers, he has remained unyielding.
“People who know me know I do what I want to do, and if there's something I want to pursue and try, I'll do it. If people want to talk, let them talk. It doesn’t hurt me or bother me; I just focus on myself. I do things that make me happy.”
Toney is currently in Jeddah, where temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius this weekend. He said he loves the city’s beaches and restaurants, and considers it “cooler” than Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. However, after moving from Brentford to the Red Sea coast, he did need time to adapt.
“The weather plays a big part—someone should try going into a sauna and see if they can adapt. You have to play different games with different tactics, and that’s something you need to get used to. There will be periods of about 20 minutes in a match where the intensity is really high, then you need to slow down the pace and take it easy again.”
Toney also talked about competing with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
“Once I got on the pitch, the goals started coming. I felt like I could have scored more, but even so, I finished as the league's second-highest scorer in my first season at a club that was completely new to me. I think that’s already a huge achievement.
This season, I hope to finish as the league’s top scorer, and I hope that helps the team win games and reach the level we should be at.
We have enough quality to win matches, and if we keep up our good form, we have a great chance. We showed that in the (AFC Champions League) tournament.”
If finishing fifth was somewhat disappointing for Al-Ahly, winning the AFC Champions League in May was more than enough to make up for it. They defeated Kawasaki Frontale in the final, lifting the trophy in front of over 60,000 fans in Jeddah.
“Especially in the semi-finals, the atmosphere during the game against Al-Hilal was incredible—it showed just how passionate the fans here are.”
However, outside of Jeddah and Riyadh, attendance figures are often lower. This has been used to counter the claim that Saudi Arabia has a world-class league.
“The situation is different, but you come here with just one goal: to get three points and take them home. The passion is in your heart and in the dressing room. It doesn’t matter if there are 10 people, 10,000 people or 20,000 people watching live. The key lies with the players—to go out and fight for victory.”
Toney echoed Cristiano Ronaldo’s view that the Saudi Pro League is one of the best leagues in the world.
“Ronaldo has been around the world; he probably knows more than me, because I’ve only played in the Premier League, EFL Championship, League One and League Two. For me, the (Saudi Pro League) is on a par with the Premier League. If (Al-Ittihad) could play in the Premier League, we would give it our all to get close to a top-four finish.
This is a high-quality league, and people shouldn’t look down on it. We saw Al-Hilal play against Manchester City—and they beat them.
I wanted to tweet about it, but if people back in the UK saw that, they would definitely come after me, so I kept quiet. But people saw Al-Hilal’s quality.
The standard in Saudi Arabia is very high. They can play football here. The players there aren’t as well-known as those in the Premier League, but there are still a lot of players who can play at a high level.”
