Al-Nassr Open Their Title Defence With a Ruthless Hat-Trick — and Ronaldo Watches From the Stands
By Dr Talal Othman Riyadh
In the stands of Al-Awwal Park, Cristiano Ronaldo sat in his civilian clothes, arms folded, eyes tracking teammates doing precisely what he was supposed to be the one to lead: opening the title-defence campaign with a win that admitted no argument. His team won 3-0. He did not touch the ball once. That, perhaps, was Saturday evening's truest irony in Riyadh that Al-Nassr should begin the era after the individual dream with a purely collective victory, while the greatest goalscorer the game has known watched the whole thing unfold from a seat, not from the pitch.
The story, on its surface, is simple enough: Al-Nassr host Al-Fateh on the opening weekend of the Roshn Saudi League and leave with a comfortable 3-0 win. But anyone who knows how the stories of big clubs are actually written understands that it is the small details that carry the real narrative. Ronaldo, the captain and architect of the club's modern mythology, was absent — not through injury or suspension, but simply because he arrived late to pre-season training, still carrying the mileage of a World Cup campaign with his national team weeks earlier. His body was not yet tuned to the season's rhythm, so the coaching staff chose to give him more time, and in doing so gave the team a chance to prove it is more than a system built around one man.
And prove it they did, emphatically. By the 37th minute the deadlock was broken, Brazilian Ângelo Gabriel curling a left-footed effort into the near corner in a moment that revealed something telling: the young generation Al-Nassr's hierarchy has assembled in recent years is no longer content to stand in the shadow of the club's marquee names. Three minutes later João Félix doubled the lead with a touch of technical class that reminded everyone watching that Al-Nassr no longer need a single name to make the difference — they now field an attacking machine with multiple faces, European in its finish, South American in its rhythm.
Then came the third, in the 73rd minute, Samu Costa putting his own signature on an afternoon that felt less like a routine opener and more like a statement of intent. Three goals, three different nationalities, and barely a defensive lapse worth mentioning against a Fateh side that never found an answer to its hosts' momentum.
Which raises the deeper question worth asking once the scoreline has stopped ringing in the ears: was Ronaldo's absence a blessing in disguise? The easy answer says yes the team scored a hat-trick without needing to lean on its usual "saviour". But the fairer reading is that this win cannot be understood apart from Ronaldo at all, only alongside him; it was his presence and, on this occasion, his absence that has set a tone of professional seriousness around the squad, pushing those around him to raise their own level, whether he is on the pitch or watching from close range as a spectator.
Tactically, Al-Nassr's approach was unmistakably direct: pace on the flanks, depth exploited in behind a Fateh back line that looked unsettled by early crosses into the box. Once the first two goals arrived within three minutes of each other before the break, the match effectively became an exercise in game management — a different test altogether from the test of scoring, and one Al-Nassr passed just as convincingly by adding a third in the second half rather than easing off.
With this win, Al-Nassr banks its first three points in defence of the title and sends an early message to its rivals in the Saudi league, Al-Hilal chief among them: the absence of the club's biggest star will be neither an excuse nor an obstacle. Al-Fateh, for their part, leave Riyadh with a heavy defeat, though the match was less a disaster than a revealing snapshot of the gap in physical and mental readiness between the two sides at the start of the season.
There is no time to rest. On Tuesday, Al-Nassr face Al-Diriyah in the first round of the King Salman Cup, a fresh test that will show whether Ronaldo returns to the starting line-up or is given further time to regain full fitness. The following day, Al-Fateh try to lick their wounds against Al-Ula in the same round of the competition.
The image that will linger is not any of the three goals, but that quiet shot of Ronaldo in the stands, applauding his teammates while quietly recalculating his own situation. The man who has spent a career at the centre of every story found himself, this time, cast as narrator rather than protagonist — watching a new chapter of his club's history being written without him, in preparation for a return everyone knows will come, sooner or later, and decisively.
Dr Talal Othman holds a PhD in Sport Media and specialises in sports journalism analysis and major tournament coverage.
