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Leaders Al-Ittihad did not waste the
opportunity to widen the gap with Al-Nassr to three points with
the last seven remaining, with a victory 2-1 against Al-Wehda.
Al-Ittihad had an advantage also in a head-to-head result with
Al-Nassr.
Ronaldo, 38, who joined Al-Nassr in January in a contract
estimated by media to be worth more than 200 million euros ($218
million), hit a ball into the hands of goalkeeper Vladimir
Stojkovic, who kissed the ball in the 68th minute.
Stojkovic seemed to cast a spell on the ball as the Portugal
captain fired twice over the bar in the space of six minutes,
and Brazilian Anderson Talisca, the league's top scorer, was
ineffective also.
Ronaldo appeared furious while leaving the pitch after his goal
tally stopped at 11 goals in 10 league games, and he took off
the captain armband and left it in his hand.
Al-Nassr coach Rudi Garcia was not satisfied with the
performance, nor the result.
"The result is definitely bad and we are not happy," the French
coach told the Saudi Sports Company (SSC) through a translator.
"I don’t feel satisfied with the players' performance. I asked
them to play at the same level as the last game (in the 5-0
victory against Al-Adalah), but this didn’t happen".
Al-Nassr, who won the title for the last time in 2019, will play
a crucial game next week against Al-Hilal, the defending
champion and fourth in the standings, which may determine the
race for the title.
"There are seven games left, we will try to recover, and we
realize that it’s not easy after we lost two points, but
everything is possible."
Al-Feiha posted on Twitter an edited image of their captain Sami
Al-Khaibari sitting in front of Ronaldo at a chess table,
reflecting a famous advertisement featuring rivals Lionel Messi
and Cristiano.
The image captioned "checkmate", drew more than 1.9 million
views, compared to fewer than 100,000 views for other page
posts.
(Reporting by Ahmed Mostafa, Osama Khairy and Shady Amir;
Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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