Why did Cristiano Ronaldo miss Al-Nassr’s Saudi Pro League match against Al-Kholood? – First post

Aymeric Laporte and Anderson Talisca were the scorers as Al-Nassr played to a 3-3 draw against Al Kholood in a Saudi Pro League (SPL) match on Friday. The draw helped Al-Nassr, the competition’s third-placed team, remain unbeaten (five wins and three draws). However, one of the talking points in Al-Nassr’s game was that Cristiano Ronaldo missed the game

Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes against Iranian club Esteghlal in the AFC Champions League elite competition on Tuesday (October 22), but missed the game against Al Kholood on Friday.

Why did Ronaldo miss the game against Al Kholood?

There are no injury worries for Cristiano Ronaldo. However, Ronaldo was not even named on the Al-Nassr bench for the game against Al-Kholood. It also remains to be seen whether the reason for excluding Ronaldo from the Al-Nassr squad for the Al-Kholood game was to manage the 39-year-old’s workload, as Al-Nassr has some important AFC champion league games coming up to.

In September, Ronaldo missed an AFC Champions League game against Al Shorta in Iraq after being diagnosed with a viral infection. Al-Nassr drew 1-1 in this game against the Iraqi team. Sultan Al Ghanam opened the scoring for the visitors in the 14th minute, but just 10 minutes later Mohammed Dawood equalized for Al-Shorta.

“Al Nassr captain Cristiano Ronaldo was not feeling well today and was diagnosed with a viral infection,” Al Nassr had confirmed at the time. “The team doctor confirmed that he needs to rest and stay at home. Therefore, he will not be traveling with the team to Iraq today. We wish our captain a speedy recovery,” the club had added.

Since joining Al-Nassr at the end of 2022, Ronaldo has scored 73 goals in 81 games. With Al-Nassr he won the Arab Club Champions Cup in 2023. This season, Ronaldo has scored six goals and assisted two goals for Al-Nassr.