A Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick and a brace by Sadio Mane led Al Nassr to its first league win of the season as it clinched a 5-0 win against Al Fateh at the Prince Abdullah Bin Jalawi Stadium on Saturday.
Al Nassr started on the frontfoot, enjoying early possession and took 27 minutes to open the scoring. Ronaldo and Mane combined as the Al Nassr found Mane with an exquisite flick that sent Mane through on goal. One-on-one with Al Fateh goalkeeper Jacob Rinne, Mane kept his cool to dink the ball into the net.
Luis Castro’s men grabbed its second of the night in the 38th minute. This time, it was Ronaldo’s turn to find the net. Sultan Al-Ghannam delivered an accurate cross from the right flank, and Ronaldo had all the time and space to head the ball into the net and score his first league goal of the season.
Ending the first half-half on a positive note, Al Nassr started the second like it ended the first, making continuous inroads into the Al Fateh final third.
The pressure paid off, and in the 55th minute, Ronaldo grabbed his second of the night courtesy of a well-worked-out attacking move by Al Nassr. Marcelo Brozovic spotted Abdulrahman Ghareeb’s run. The Croatian found Ghareeb with an accurate aerial through-ball, and suddenly, Ghareeb was through on goal. Seeing the danger, Rinne rushed out to narrow the angle, but the Al-Nassr winger chose the unselfish route, squaring the ball to his captain, as Ronaldo slotted the ball inside the net with the simplest of finishes.
Lucas Zelarayán came close to pulling one back for Al Fateh in the 80th minute but saw his shot thunder off the post and come back into play. Before Al Fateh knew it, Al Nassr broke into a swift counter-attack.
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Ronaldo carried the ball a long way, before spreading it to Ghareeb on the left. Ghareeb had a look up and spotted Mane in the middle and picked out the Senegalese with a pinpoint cross. Mane went for a looping header and found the net to grab his brace and score Al Nassr’s fourth in the 81st minute.
Feras Al-Buraikan had another opportunity to score a consolation goal for Al Fateh but could not convert from point-blank in the 85th minute.
If that wasn’t frustrating enough, Ronaldo punished Al Fateh, once again in the sixth minute of second-half added time after tapping the ball inside the net from Nawaf Boushal’s pullback to clinch his hat-trick and bag a fifth for Al Nassr.
With this win, Al Nassr climbs to 10th place in the league standings with three points in the same number of matches.
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