Al Nasr’s Debut with Ronaldo: A Big Challenge

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is going through the toughest test with his new Al-Nasr team when he takes on hosts Al-Ittihad tomorrow, Thursday, at the Saudi Football League 20th stage summit.

Al-Nasr, led by French coach Rudy Garcia, who has been searching for the title since 2019, leads the Saudi League standings with 46 points, armed with four straight victories, two points behind Al-Ittihad, who is supervised by Portugal’s Nuno. Espiritu Santo and hopes not to give up the title as he did last season against Al Hilal.

Ronaldo (38), the five-time best player in the world who rides a fictitious deal to the Saudi Arabian capital team, has raised his tally to 8 goals in the league since moving to Al Nasr earlier in the year.

Al-Don scored a quad last month against Al-Wehda, then a hat-trick against Damak, but in the last match against Al-Bateen, in which his team avoided defeat, refrained from scoring a goal, scoring three goals after the 90th minute (3-1).

In addition to the star of the Spanish Real Madrid, the Al-Nasr club also includes the Italian Juventus and the former English Manchester United, the Brazilian Luis Gustavo, the Ivorian Ghislan Konan, Sultan Al-Ghanam, Abdullah Al-Omari and Abdul Rahman Gharib.

In the match, scheduled at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Al-Nasr will be missed by Brazil’s Anderson Talisca, the league’s top scorer (13 goals), Argentine Betty Martinez and midfielder Ayman Yahya due to injury, but he will recover. Spanish defender Alvaro Gonzalez after absence.

Al-Nasr and Al-Ittihad are making steady progress in the league as they have only lost one match each and have played with champion character in past matches and are each fighting for three points despite being absent, which he suffered from.

Al-Nasr is counting on the strongest attack in the league (42 vs. 34 for Al-Ittihad), while the team from Jeddah has the strongest defense (6 goals vs. 10 for Al-Nasr).

The federation includes a group of prominent names such as the Brazilian goalkeeper Marcelo Groe, his compatriots Igor Coronado and Romarinho, the Egyptian Tariq Hamed and the Moroccan Abdel Razzaq Hamdallah, who finished second in the ranking of scorers (12 goals).

The first leg match between the two teams ended in a goalless draw and Al Ittihad midfielder Tariq Hamed was sent off before the end of the first half as Al Ittihad won 3-1 last January in the Super Bowl.

Source: agencies