Cristiano Ronaldo storms off pitch and argues with player in outburst

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Cristiano Ronaldo engaged in a verbal row as he stormed off the pitch after Al-Nassr’s 0-0 draw against Al-Fayha on Sunday. The stalemate against the Saudi Professional League’s 11th-placed side dented Ronaldo’s hopes of lifting the title in his first season in the Middle East.

Al-Nassr were dominant at Al Majma’ah Sports City, keeping 59 per cent possession and taking 17 shots to Al-Fayha’s five.

Ronaldo took four of them, firing an effort straight at Vladimir Stojkovic before blazing two chances over the bar within a six-minute period.

Anderson Talisca, who has scored 16 goals in 17 league appearances this season, also endured a frustrating evening as Al-Nassr lost ground in the title race.

Ronaldo was furious with the result as he removed the captain’s armband and made a bee-line to the tunnel after full-time before clashing with Al-Rayhad midfielder Ali Al-Zaqan.

The 38-year-old icon was heard saying ‘you don’t want to play’ as he brushed off Al-Zaqan and turned around to zip his mouth shut when the Saudi star gave some back to him.

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Title rivals Al-Ittihad beat Al-Wehda 2-1 at the weekend, helping them move three points ahead of Al-Nassr at the summit.

With seven games of the league campaign left and a Kings Cup semi-final against Al-Wehda to come, Ronaldo will remain confident of tasting gold this season.

The five-time Ballon d’Or winner has scored 11 goals in 12 outings since swapping Manchester United for Al-Nassr at the end of 2022.

But Al-Fayha rubbed salt in the wounds by posting a social media image seen by millions of captain Sami Al Khaibara sitting in front of Ronaldo at a chess table, captioning it, ‘checkmate’.

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And Al-Nassr boss Rudi Garcia expressed his disappointment with the performance and result.

He told the Saudi Sports Company: “The result is definitely bad, and we are not happy. I don’t feel satisfied with the players’ performance.

“I asked them to play at the same level as the last game [in the 5-0 victory against Al Adalah], but this didn’t happen.

“There are seven games left, we will try to recover, and we realise that it’s not easy after we lost two points, but everything is possible.”

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