Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — Cristiano Ronaldo scored the stunning winner against visitors Al Shabab on Tuesday, keeping Al Nassr’s hopes of clinching the Saudi Pro League title alive. The Riyadh club's 3-2 win in an exciting match in the 28th round of the Roshn Saudi League put Al Ittihad’s title celebrations on hold despite being the firm favorites with two games remaining in the season. In the last matches, Al Nassr will take on Ettifaq and Al-Fateh while Al Ittihad will meet Al-Feiha and Al-Tai.
Tuesday’s victory leaves Al Nassr three points behind Al Ittihad, who defeated bottom-of-the-table Al Batin to stay on top of the league.
Ronaldo’s Al Nassr need their rivals to drop points while making sure they win the remainder of their own matches. Al Ittihad continues to lead the standings with 66 points, while Al Nassr remains in second place with 63 points.
Al Shabab dented Al Nassr’s faint hopes of winning the title early on with Argentinian forward Cristian Guanca putting the Riyadh-based club side two goals up in the first half.
However, Al Nassr clawed their way back into contention with goals from Talisca and Abdulrahman Ghareeb on either side of halftime. Ronaldo then put Al Nassr 3-2 up with a brilliant solo strike.
In the 59th minute of the match, Ronaldo gets the ball inside the box, shrugged off one challenge, jinked around another defender and curled a long-distance shot to the right of a diving keeper Kim and the crowd go crazy as they continued to sing Ronaldo’s signature celebration “SIU.” This wonderful goal with a powerful shot brings the star player’s personal tally to 14 goals in the Saudi Pro League.
Meanwhile, Al-Ittihad is one victory away from being crowned champions of the Roshn Saudi League after their victory over Al-Batin 1-0. With this loss, Al-Batin, who finished in the last place of SPL, were relegated to the Saudi First Division League.
Brazilian Romarinho scored the only goal of the match in the 9th minute. The referee disallowed a goal by Moroccan Abdel Razzaq Hamdallah after resorting to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in the first half's stoppage time.
Al Nassr’s next match is on Saturday against Ettifaq. Ittihad, however, could secure the championship with a win over Al Feiha on the same day.
