Al-Nassr Club thrashed Al-Wehda 4-0 with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Super Hat-trick quadruple in the Saudi Pro League competition held at King Abdulaziz Sports City Stadium on Thursday night.
The Portuguese legend scored the 61st hat-trick of his career and his first for Al-Nassr to fire his team back to the top of the Saudi Pro League. This was for first time Ronaldo scored four goals in one game since 2018. Al-Nassr took on Al-Wehda without suspended top scorer Talisca but Ronaldo ensured that the Brazilian was not missed.
Ronaldo scored his 9th Super Hat-trick quadruple in his career, four days after his 38th birthday, in the 16th round of the Saudi Professional League competition. The last match in which Ronaldo scored a quadruple goes back to March 18, 2018, when Real Madrid swept his opponent Girona 6-3 in the Spanish League.
Ronaldo’s first goal came in the 21st minute via a sweet left-footed strike. It was the 500th league goal of Ronaldo’s career. He then produced a clinical finish with his right foot to make it 2-0 just before half-time. The 38-year-old’s hat-trick goal arrived from the penalty spot eight minutes into the second half. Ronaldo has now scored 61 hat-tricks during his record-breaking career.
The former Real Madrid and Manchester United forward made it 4-0 just after the hour-mark when he converted a rebound after his initial effort had been saved. Ronaldo continued with the onslaught after scoring his fourth goal of the game in 61 minutes.
On the occasion of bagging four goals, which coincided with his 500th league strike, football fans trooped to social media in their droves to shower praises on Ronaldo. “The greatest there is! The greatest there was and the greatest there ever will be,” was one tweet.
Ronaldo appears to have finally settled into life in Saudi Arabia after scoring in successive games. The former Real Madrid goal-scoring machine endured a torrid start to life in his Middle East sojourn, blanking in his first two official matches. His low strike after just 21 minutes broke the game’s deadlock but most importantly elevated Ronaldo to a landmark feat in his glittering career.
Ronaldo’s strike against Al-Wehda marked his 500th league goal across a career that has seen him play for Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Juventus. It was the first time that Ronaldo scored a Super Hat-trick in the 2010-2011 season, when he scored it for the first time in his career in Back Racing Santander, before repeating it in 2011 against Seville.
In the 2014-2015 seasons, Ronaldo scored a super hat-trick against Elche, before opening it the following year in the Champions League against Malmö, Sweden. Ronaldo stopped recording quartets until 2017, when he returned to it against Celta Vigo in the Real Seven, to witness the same year opening his quartets with his country’s national team shirt, the first against Andorra and the second in 2019 in Lithuania.
