Ronaldo’s Title Hopes Dashed by Injury-Time Own Goal

The yellow shirts were already part of the script. The fireworks could almost be imagined. Al-Nassr were seconds away from ending a seven-year wait for the Saudi Pro League crown – and giving Cristiano Ronaldo his first domestic title in Saudi Arabia.

Then came Bento’s nightmare.

Leading 1-0 against fierce rivals Al Hilal in Riyadh on Tuesday, Al-Nassr stood on the brink. The stadium had turned into a sea of yellow, fans handed free shirts before kick-off in expectation of a coronation, not a contest. The league leaders had done the hard part: shut out the champions, held their nerve, crept towards the finish line.

And then, in stoppage time, the ball looped into the night sky.

Bento moved to deal with an overhead effort, a routine save on almost any other day. Instead, he fumbled. The ball slipped from his grasp, spun backwards and trickled over the line. An own goal. A title delayed in the most brutal fashion.

On the touchline, Ronaldo could only watch. The Al-Nassr captain, taken off before the final whistle, cut a figure of disbelief and anger as the Brazilian goalkeeper’s error turned three points into one. The equaliser did more than alter a scoreline; it ripped up the evening’s script.

A win would have sealed Al-Nassr’s 11th league title and the first for Ronaldo since his high-profile arrival from Manchester United in January 2023. For a player who built a career on decisive moments, this one was ripped from his hands while he sat helpless on the bench.

Instead of celebrating, Al-Nassr must wait. They still sit top of the table on 83 points from 33 games. Al Hilal, who lifted the title in 2024 and came into the night as the hunters rather than the hunted, remain second with 78 points but have a game in hand, on 32 played.

The context makes Bento’s mistake even harsher. Al-Nassr’s last league triumph came in 2019. Ronaldo, now 41, has spent his Saudi adventure chasing the kind of domestic dominance that once seemed routine at Real Madrid and Juventus. Since his post-World Cup switch from Old Trafford, the trophies he craves have stayed just out of reach.

This, finally, looked like the moment that would change.

The club staged it like a celebration. Free shirts. Wall-to-wall yellow. A derby against Al Hilal with the chance to clinch the title at home. The tension built with every passing minute of the second half, each tackle and clearance met with roars from the stands that carried the weight of four title-less years.

The pressure finally told – just not in the way Al-Nassr imagined.

Instead of a late winner to spark delirium, the decisive act came at the wrong end, from their own goalkeeper. One misjudged catch, one slip, and the title champagne went straight back on ice.

Yet the league table still leans their way. Barring a shock collapse against 15th-place Damac in their final league game on May 21, Al-Nassr remain clear favourites to finish the job. The margin for error has narrowed, but the path is still in front of them.

Ronaldo knows it. “The dream is close,” he wrote to his 770 million-plus followers after the game, a message that carried both reassurance and defiance.

Close, but not done. Not yet. The title that felt certain in stoppage time against Al Hilal will now be decided under a different kind of pressure – the kind that asks whether a single, cruel mistake becomes a footnote to glory, or the moment an entire season slipped away.