Cristiano Ronaldo was absent as Al-Nassr defeated Uzbekistan\u2019s Pakhtakor 6-2 in their AFC Champions League Elite fixture on Monday, with the Portuguese forward left out of the squad amid wider security concerns surrounding the competition in Saudi Arabia.\n<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old was among three key players rested by Al-Nassr coach Ange Postecoglou for the trip to Tashkent, with Kingsley Coman and Mohamed Simakan also missing from the squad.\n<\/p>\n
According to The Independent on Monday, Postecoglou said the decision was taken \u201cgiven the pressure of matches and the amount of travel involved\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
However, the team\u2019s trip came against the backdrop of security concerns in the region, following reported missile attacks by Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Al-Nassr\u2019s previous home fixture in the competition, against an opponent on October 12, was delayed by an hour following reports of the attacks, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s subsequent match against UAE side Al-Wasl was also postponed after the visitors declined to travel to Riyadh because of the security situation. <\/p>\n
Despite Ronaldo\u2019s absence, Al-Nassr produced an emphatic performance against Pakhtakor, with Jo\u00e3o F\u00e9lix scoring twice in the 6-2 victory at the Pakhtakor Central Stadium.<\/p>\n
Abdullah Al-Hamdan opened the scoring in the 15th minute before F\u00e9lix added a second two minutes later. The former Chelsea forward scored again in the 32nd minute to give Al-Nassr a 3-0 lead.\n<\/p>\n
Pakhtakor pulled one back through Flamarion in the 36th minute, but Al-Nassr extended their advantage after the break through Abdulelah Al-Amri and Abdulrahman Ghareeb.\n<\/p>\n
Dostonbek Khamdamov scored Pakhtakor\u2019s second goal before \u00c2ngelo completed the scoring for the visitors in the 79th minute.\n<\/p>\n
The Saudi Press Agency reported that the victory was Al-Nassr\u2019s second win in the competition. The result moved the club to fourth place in the West Region standings with six points, while Pakhtakor remained on two points.\n<\/p>\n
Ronaldo had scored a hat-trick in Al-Nassr\u2019s 5-3 league victory over Al-Kholood last Thursday, taking his career tally to 985 goals and his season\u2019s total to nine goals in 12 appearances.\n<\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo was absent as Al-Nassr defeated Uzbekistan\u2019s Pakhtakor 6-2 in their AFC Champions League Elite fixture on Monday, with the Portuguese forward left out of the squad amid wider… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}