Al-Nasr -
Damak - 4:1 (Mane, 34, Coman, 52, Ronaldo, 63, 81 – Sylla, 58P).
Judge for
yourself: players from Brazil (Bento), Spain (Inigo Martinez), France (Mohammed
Simakan and Kingsley Coman), Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo and Joao Felix) and
Senegal (Sadio Mane) joined the main squad for the newly crowned champion of
Saudi Arabia.
All these
years, 41-year-old Ronaldo's pride, hung with prizes, suffered. He won the
English championship with Manchester United, was the Spanish champion with Real
Madrid, and became the Italian champion with Juventus. And finally, with
Al-Nasr, he took the title in Saudi Arabia.
When Joao
Felix passed the ball from the corner flag and Sadio Mane headed the ball into
the goal, the captain of the Senegalese national team rejoiced as if he had won
the African Cup of Nations. After all, the goalkeeper of the outsider Damak,
Brazilian Silva Kevin, did nothing but drag the shots of the star players of
Al-Nasr throughout the first half.
In the
second half, the silver medalist of the 2022 World Cup, Frenchman Kingsley
Coman, played a wall shot with Abdullah Al-Khaibari and put it right in the
corner of Kevin's goal and was so happy, as if he had won the World Cup final.
But even a
modest outsider almost ruined the celebration for his star counterpart. After
taking a corner, Algerian Abdelkader Bedran headed past Bento's goal. But the
sharp eye of the VAR saw that the ball, on its way to the top corner of the
goal, met the hand of Frenchman Mohamed Simakan. And this is a penalty. And the
chief referee of the match, Khalid Saleh Al-Turais, looked at the picture in
the booth and pointed to the dot. And Guinea's Morlay Sylla sent the ball so
hard and accurately into the corner of the goal that Bento did not reach,
although he guessed the direction of the shot.
It was here
that the Portuguese veteran remembered that he needed to take on the burden of
leadership. The score became slippery and any goal by the guys in red could be
fatal.
In general,
he scored two goals. First, he put the ball into the far corner from the
standard on top. It's strange that Damak didn't really put up a
"wall", as if he himself dreamed of conceding a goal. If there had
been at least four players in the wall, the ball would never have entered the
goal.
After a
shot towards Ronaldo from defender Nawaf Al-Bushala, the Algerian Bedran wanted
to put his foot in, but from his foot the ball flew to Ronaldo. And with a shot
from a sharp angle, he shot the near corner of the visitors' goal. Well,
finally!
By the way,
after the match, the head coach of the champions, 71-year-old Portuguese Jorge
Jesus announced that he was returning to his homeland. It turns out that he
came for one year at the personal request of Cristiano Ronaldo to help take the
title. I helped, it's time to retire.…
Probably,
the many fans of Cristiano Ronaldo in our country cried with happiness with
him. However, Portugal will play against the national team of Uzbekistan in the
group stage of the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Then it will be
interesting to see who turns out to be cooler in fact – Ronaldo or our
Abdukadir Husanov. We'll see!
