GiveMeSport
·30 August 2023
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·30 August 2023
Cristiano Ronaldo's angry outburst following his bizarrely disallowed goal for Al Nassr has been captured by cameras and microphones.
The Portuguese forward was the centre of attention as his team ran out dominant 4-0 winners in a home league match against Al-Shabab on Tuesday. Ronaldo scored the opening goal by slotting confidently past the despairing goalkeeper from the penalty spot following a handball in the box by an opposing defender.
He was then fouled himself in the penalty area, before then picking out the exact same corner from 12 yards out to put his side 2-0 ahead. Ronaldo then got a third goal involvement of the game as he lay a well-weighted pass into the path of former Liverpool forward - Sadio Mane - who slotted past the goalkeeper.
Argentine midfielder, Ever Banega, was shown a straight red card for a horror tackle in the closing stages before the result was wrapped up by Sultan Al-Ghannam, who fired home a rebound after Ronaldo's header rattled the post. Despite being heavily involved in all four goals for his team, the 38-year-old was far from happy at an incident that occurred in the first half of the game.
A corner swung in by Marcelo Brozovic, with the scoreline at 1-0, found the head of the five-time Ballon d'Or winner and was guided into the top corner of the net with relative ease for a man of his quality.
Thinking he had doubled his side's advantage, Ronaldo was soon sent into a state of disbelief as his strike was disallowed for a foul in the lead up to the goal. Having consulted the VAR monitor, the referee had decided there was a push from the striker on a player attempting to defend the corner.
While there was certainly a hand on the chest before the ball came into the box, replays showed that the defender in question had actually just stumbled backwards and collided with his own teammate, rather than being pushed by Ronaldo. Upon the decision being made, the Portugal international was far from happy as he could be seen to shout in the direction of the official: "Always against me!" followed by an expletive.
In this case it is very easy to see the frustration felt by the player, who was also seen to aggressively kick a bottle at the side of the pitch before staring down the assistant referee.
Ronaldo was not the only one left reeling by the baffling decision, as his manager - Luis Castro - said after the game, via Sportskeeda: "Why did the referee disallow Cristiano's goal? In the Saudi League I saw a similar case: there was a stronger push than the one we saw today, but the referee validated the goal. I won't say more, but everyone saw it."