Joao Felix scored twice and set up two more goals as Al Nassr thrashed Pakhtakor 6-2 in Tashkent on Monday, winning an AFC Champions League Elite match without rested captain Cristiano Ronaldo.
Victory gave Al Nassr a second straight win in the competition and strengthened their push for a place in the top eight of the western zone, after they had started the day in ninth place, outside the knockout places.
Al Nassr took control early at Pakhtakor Central Stadium and never let go. Abdullah Al-Hamdan opened the scoring in the 15th minute, before Felix doubled the lead two minutes later and added a second goal in the 32nd minute.
Pakhtakor pulled one back through Flamarion in the 36th minute, but the visitors restored their three-goal cushion after the break. Abdulelah Al-Amri headed home in the 53rd minute, Abdulrahman Ghareeb struck in the 62nd minute, and Angelo completed the scoring in the 79th minute.
Dostonbek Khamdamov scored Pakhtakor’s second goal in the 75th minute, but by then the result was beyond doubt. Sadio Mane also played a central role in the win, setting up two of Al Nassr’s goals.
Why Ronaldo stayed home
Ronaldo did not travel to Uzbekistan after head coach Ange Postecoglou chose to rest him for the fourth-round tie. Kingsley Coman and Mohamed Simakan were also left out of the travelling squad.
“I decided to rest Ronaldo, Coman and Simakan, given the pressure of matches and the amount of travel involved,” Postecoglou told a pre-match news conference in Tashkent.
Postecoglou stressed that the decision was about workload, not fitness. Reports before the match were clear that Ronaldo was not injured and was not suspended.
A win without the main man
Ronaldo’s absence made the scale of the win more striking. Al Nassr’s attack still produced six goals away from home, with Felix at the heart of almost everything good the visitors created.
Felix scored twice, set up Al-Hamdan’s opener and supplied the pass for Al-Amri’s goal. Mane’s pace and delivery kept Pakhtakor’s defence stretched, and the goals were shared across the side rather than depending on one player.
Pakhtakor, by contrast, were left with a fourth straight winless match in the competition. Reports after the game put the Uzbek side in 12th place in the standings with two points from four matches.
The 1,000-goal chase pauses
Ronaldo’s rest also paused, for one more game, his pursuit of 1,000 career goals. He scored a hat-trick in Al Nassr’s 5-3 Saudi Pro League win over Al Kholood last week, taking his combined club and international tally to 985 goals.
Monday’s match was the second successive AFC Champions League Elite game Ronaldo has missed. He had already been a regular starter for Al Nassr this season, with nine goals in 12 appearances for the club before the trip to Tashkent.
For Pakhtakor, the defeat underlined the gap between the two squads on the night. Flamarion’s goal briefly gave the home crowd hope at 3-1, but Al Nassr answered within minutes of the restart and the contest never tightened again.
What happens next
Ronaldo is expected to return for Al Nassr’s next match, a Saudi Pro League fixture against Al Hazem on Friday, November 6. That game will give him his next chance to move closer to 1,000 goals.
Al Nassr will look to build on back-to-back continental wins when the AFC Champions League Elite resumes, while Pakhtakor face another difficult test, away to Saudi side Al-Ittihad on November 23.
