Wolves on the prowl: Charting Al Taawoun's superb start | OneFootball

After Al Nassr put five past Al Taawoun to open the 2025-26 Roshn Saudi League season, not many would’ve predicted that the team from Buraidah would be their conquerors’ closest challengers at the top when we broke for the November international window.

But that’s exactly where we find ourselves after Pericles Chamusca’s side have strung together seven consecutive wins to storm up to second in the table. Eight matchweeks in, they’re three points behind Al Nassr and one point ahead of 2023-24 champions Al Hilal.

It has been, perhaps aside from the league leaders’ perfect start, the storyline of the opening months of the campaign. It’s proof, also, that lightning can indeed strike twice.

Because, for as impressive as this run has been, it is not, in fact, unprecedented.

Back in his second stint, Pericles Chamusca has Al Taawoun purring again

You have to look back only to the 2023-24 season, where Al Taawoun found themselves in exactly the same position: sitting second ahead of more-fancied heavyweights. They would eventually finish fourth, qualifying for the AFC Champions League Two.

Two years on, and with an even stronger RSL field thanks to the addition of the likes of Al Qadsiah and NEOM Sports Club, how have Al Taawoun managed to do it again?

Let’s start with the return of their Brazilian tactician.

It was a risk coming back to Chamusca, who oversaw their remarkable 2023-24 campaign before deciding to join the NEOM SC project. Handed the task of earning promotion to the RSL for the first time in the club’s history, he delivered.

However, opting for a manager that had such success first time around can creates an unbelievably (and sometimes impossibly) high bar to reach once again, as they essentially compete against themselves.

But Al Taawoun, who never wanted to lose Chamusca in the first place, knew they were on to a good thing with the 60-year-old. They therefore had no hesitation in bringing him back into the fold.

Not least because, officially, he is the winningest manager in RSL history, his 88 victories earned across time spent with Al Faisaly, Al Hilal, Al Shabab and Al Taawoun. Earlier this season, Chamusca overtook Fathi Al Jabal to top the managerial table.

For comparison, Jorge Jesus, who has enjoyed remarkable success with Al Hilal, sits on 70.

Add in Chamusca’s 24 wins in 34 games with NEOM SC in the First Division League - they finished as champions - and it’s clear he has the magic formula for how to succeed in Saudi Arabia.

And yet, while he returned to the same club, he didn’t return to the same team. Players come and players go so, while the bulk of the squad remained the same, there were several important changes that have played their part in Al Taawoun’s success this season.

The arrival last season of Colombian international Roger Martinez added a fresh dimension to their attack, and it is notable this season how much more attacking they are compared to last term.

With Rodolfo Arruabarrena initially in charge, Al Taawoun weren’t necessarily bad in attack, but they’d lost the edge they possessed with Chamusca. In Chamusca’s 2023-24 season, his team netted 51 goals in 34 games - an average 1.50 per game - whereas last term they managed only 40 in 34 games.

This campaign, however, the offensive verve has returned: through eight games Al Taawoun have already scored 23 goals, averaging 2.88 per match.

Martinez has six of those, with Musa Barrow chipping in another three. Yet another new face to have made a sizeable difference is Angelo Fulgini, the French attacking midfielder on loan from Lens.

The 29-year-old, a former French youth international, is ranked second in the league for assists with five, with two goals of his own for good measure. Such an array of forward arsenal in the hands of an attack-minded manager such as Chamusca, it was always going to be a recipe for success.

Chamusca puts their success down to a few factors, including plain old hard work, but says the continuity from his previous time at the club is a major reason as he was able to largely slot back in as if he never left.

“The advantage is that I am returning to a club where I had already done a job for two years, and most of the players, especially foreigners, continued in the club,” Chamusca said after Al Taawoun’s 5-2 win at Al Fateh right before the break.

“The players I brought continued in the club, and many local players, too. So I got to a scenario where they already knew my methodology. This is a very important point.

“The other point is that we were able to create an alignment - the administration, the president, the board, the technical commission, and the players. We were able to align this to the possibility of greater results.

“Every day we are working for each victory. It's not just on the day of the game. Every day we work, all departments - the medical department, the physical department - are interconnected. They meet every day, so that's the big secret of our team.”