Footballer gets taken off in football match and replaced with a teammate is, I'll admit, not newsworthy. But when it's Cristiano Ronaldo and the huge scoreboard causing a partial solar eclipse of the Saudi sun says 45 minutes, it's probably worth a look.
And then you see that the manager, Ange Postecoglou, said that his side “needed a different approach,†and you'll likely need some glue to keep your eyebrows in place.
First things first: it's not all kicked off in Nassr HQ, at least not publicly. But the change wasn't due to injury, and it's also likely that Ronaldo wasn't a happy bunny rabbit about the whole thing.
The chaos came in Al Nassr's game against Al Ettifaq in the Saudi Pro League. Ronaldo started the game and watched on as his side went down to ten men after goalkeeper Bento was shown a red-card. Then they went 2-0 down on the scoreboard and as half-time came, Ronaldo stayed inside with his teammate, Abdullah Al-Khaibari, instead emerging for the second half.
“We needed a different approach… I think there's a bigger story todayâ€
“â€With Cristiano, we know he hasn't played a lot of football. With 10 men, to have him out there after 45 minutes? He did a great job in the first half.
“But we needed a different approach in the second half. I think there's a bigger story today and that is that 10 men of Al Nassr were unbelievable. That's all you should write about.â€
And the best thing about all this? Ange's plan worked to perfection: two goals from Sadio Mané either side of a strike from Al-Amri gave Al Nassr all three points in a stunning comeback.
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