Ronaldo’s club showed a furious implementation. Cristiano himself also scored
Georgy Ilyushchenko September 20, 2024, 23:20 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
The Portuguese player’s 1,000th career goal is getting closer.
Steven Gerrard’s team with Jorginho Wijnaldum against Cristiano Ronaldo’s team with Sadio Mane. Who would have imagined a few years ago that we were talking about a Saudi League match. But this is the reality. And Al-Nasr turned out to be better at it.
A couple of days ago, Al-Nasr was led by Stefano Pioli. And the players gifted him his first victory. In the first half hour, the spectators could sleep peacefully: the only interesting thing they would have missed was Krish’s long-range shot and the save of the former Slovak Fulham goalkeeper (four Premier League games) Marek Rodak. Yes, not only star legionnaires go to Saudi Arabia.
The boredom continued, only the score kept changing. Sultan Al Ghannam took a penalty and Ronaldo converted it masterfully. This goal was the 902nd of his career. And he is already in 16th place in the Saudi Championship in the 11-meter distance: that is exactly how many attempts he had. The comparison with Messi is also interesting: Leo converted 109 of 140 penalties in his career, Krish – 165 of 195.
Cristiano Ronaldo after scoring a goal
Photo: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images
At the start of the second half, Mane put Salem Al-Najdi through with a cutting pass, who doubled Al-Nasr’s lead with a beautiful delivery. In the 70th minute, Anderson Talisca scored from Sadio’s pass without the slightest resistance. Getting a defeat out of an uneventful match is a great art: the foreign players who eventually scored were not yet used. Killer implementation.
Al-Ittifaq usually created at least something just 10 minutes before the end of regular time (it’s not for nothing that we indicate the name of the club only now), when Moussa Dembele checked Bento’s reaction: Al-Nasr took this Brazilian instead of Ederson, who did not let Manchester City go. And in the end, Ronaldo hit the crossbar. It’s a pity, it would have been a spectacular end to the match. Yes, and I want him to reach the big mark of 1,000 goals yet.
Krish and Co. have been alternating between wins and draws, and have collected eight points in four rounds; it is not for nothing that Pioli was called up. At this rate, Karim Benzema’s Al-Ittihad and especially Malcolm’s Al-Hilal cannot be left out of the “golden” race. Although Al-Ittifaq previously performed well, it has now shown itself to be extremely lackluster.
