Cristiano Ronaldo's
first year
at Al Nassr

The news, confirmed from Spain but with seismic implications throughout football and most acutely in Saudi Arabia, arrived as the penultimate day of 2022 crept past midnight.

“The greatest athlete in the world officially signs for Al Nassr,” the club stated on social media at 12.08am Riyadh time. Sporting a plain black T-shirt and black trousers, Ronaldo was pictured holding the Nassr shirt alongside club president Musalli Al Muammar.

Forty minutes later, a press release landed in inboxes around the world.

“Al Nassr Football Club, one of the most successful clubs in Saudi Arabia and Asia, and the current leaders of the Saudi Pro League, has agreed terms to sign Cristiano Ronaldo,” it said. “The five-time Ballon d’Or winner of Portugal will join on a 2.5-year contract.”

The press release described the move as “one of the most impactful and transformational in football history”.

“I am excited to experience a new football league in a different country,” Ronaldo said. “The vision of what Al Nassr are doing and developing in Saudi Arabia, both in terms of men’s and women’s football, is very inspiring.

“We can see from Saudi Arabia’s recent performance at the World Cup [they recorded a shock victory against eventual champions Argentina but exited at the group stage] that this is a country with big football ambitions and a lot of potential.

“I am fortunate that I have won everything I set out to win in European football and feel now that this is the right moment to share my experience in Asia.

“I am looking forward to joining my new teammates and, together with them, help the club to achieve success.”

A statement from Al Muammar read: “This is more than history in the making. This is a signing that will not only inspire our club to achieve even greater success, but inspire our league, our nation and future generations – boys and girls – to be the best version of themselves.

“[Ronaldo] is a special footballer and a special person, whose impact is felt far beyond football.”

In a post on social media, Saudi Minister of Sport Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal welcomed Ronaldo’s move to the kingdom. “Happy with the presence of one of the best players in the world to start his new career in Saudi Arabia. Welcome @Cristiano to the kingdom," Prince Abdulaziz said.

He pledged to “support the rest of our clubs for quality deals with international stars soon”.

Football fans across the kingdom were as enthralled by Ronaldo’s signing. Speaking to The National, Mohammed Esa, in the eastern Saudi city of Al Khobar, said: “Saudi Arabia has made history. This is the biggest news in football, and the fact that it is about my country and world champion Ronaldo makes me and every Saudi proud.

“Today marks a new chapter in football history. I have tears of joy.”

Faisal Albakr, across the kingdom in Jeddah, was similarly effusive.

“I love Ronaldo. I am so happy he will be playing in the Saudi league with Al Nassr,” he said. “The world is surprised but we always believed Saudi could do it.

“We are leading a new wave and are so excited for football and the world champions playing for Saudi club Al Nassr.”

Describing Ronaldo's arrival as the “biggest news in football” was understandable. He was not only considered one of the two greatest players of his generation, courtesy of trophy-laden stretches at United, Real Madrid and Juventus, but he is alsothe all-time leading goalscorer in men’s international football.

His profile is unrivalled. When Ronaldo signed for Nassr, he had more followers on Instagram than any other person on the planet, with 532 million (it is now 619 million). Lionel Messi, regarded as Ronaldo’s long-time nemesis and his only rival to be considered the best of their generation, ranked second, with more than 100 million fewer followers.

Ronaldo’s pull had a major effect on Nassr’s Instagram account. In the days after his move was announced, the club's followers surged from 834,000 into the millions.

Media duties complete, Ronaldo was ushered off stage to the Nassr dressing room, where he changed into his new kit and posed for official pictures. He then prepared to walk out at Mrsool Park.

Nassr announced the presentation ceremony the day before and, predictably, tickets sold out. Lifelong Nassr fan Thamer Al Wajaan made sure he was one of the 25,000 who attended.

“It was difficult,” he told The National. “I was searching on three iPhones and my laptop also. I got lucky. I just refreshed the page … there were 60,000 people.

“I just waited and I refreshed and I waited. For two hours. And, finally, I got my ticket. I was so happy.”

Ronaldo emerged from the tunnel to a crescendo of noise, fireworks and the flickering of camera flashes. Screams of “Ronaldo!” or his trademark “siu” celebration echoed around the stadium. He was followed by his partner Georgina Rodriguez, dressed in a black abaya, and their children, kitted out in replica Nassr strips.

Taking his place on a stage emblazoned with “Welcome C7”, Ronaldo’s first words into the microphone were greeted with a deafening cheer.

“I will give my best for this club,” he declared.

Ronaldo later set off around the perimeter of the pitch, signing footballs and kicking them into the stands.

League officials later told The National that Ronaldo’s arrival event was watched by more than three billion people worldwide, in 145 countries and in 53 languages.

Speaking the following day, at the Nassr store in Al Olaya, where a queue of fans seeking to buy No 7 Ronaldo shirts stretched down the street, Al Wajaan sounded as much like an ardent supporter of the player as the club.

“It was the most beautiful day in my life, because I watched Ronaldo since I was a kid. We grew up together,” he said.

“When [the signing] was announced, I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. Even yesterday, I wasn’t sure if it was Cristiano Ronaldo. I was just looking to see if it was fake. But my dreams came true.”

Ronaldo’s opening six months in Saudi football were mixed, on the pitch at least.

In his second match for Nassr, the team exited the Super Cup, beaten 3-1 in the semi-final by SPL title rivals Ittihad. Once more, Ronaldo failed to score.

But then his scoring touch returned. On February 3, Ronaldo converted a penalty three minutes into injury-time at Fateh to register his first goal and salvage a 2-2 draw. It took his side joint top in the league table.

In the next match, Ronaldo scored all four in a rout of Al Wehda, passing 500 league goals in his career. He described the milestone as a “great feeling”.

The good vibes continued in the following game at home to Taawoun, when Ronaldo assisted both goals in Nassr’s 2-1 win. In the next match, at Damac, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick – his 62nd in professional football.

“I feel more in harmony with the team now,” he said.

With eight goals and two assists in four matches, Ronaldo was named the league’s Player of the Month for February.

March, though, was not quite as positive. Nassr lost a top-of-the-table clash to Ittihad, the 1-0 defeat in Jeddah snapping Nassr's 18-match unbeaten streak in the league.

Ronaldo could not contain his frustration as he exited the pitch, kicking out at a stack of water bottles before disappearing into the tunnel.

Midway through the month, he scored his first goal in four matches, a sublime free-kick 12 minutes from time that dragged Nassr back into a home match with Al Abha. The hosts went on to complete a comeback win and stay one point behind Ittihad in the table.

Ronaldo later became the all-time leading appearance-maker in men’s international football – 197 caps – and extended his goals record for Portugal. He said he was a “better man” following his acrimonious departure from United.

On the SPL, he added: "I'm not going to say that the league is a Premier League – that would be a lie. But it's a very competitive league that I'm positively surprised by …

“I am sure that in the coming years the league will be ... the fourth, fifth or sixth most competitive league in the world.”

April, though, proved to be hugely costly for Ronaldo’s 2022/23 SPL title ambitions. He stormed off the pitch after a goalless draw at Al Fahya, which left Nassr trailing Ittihad by three points with seven games remaining. Incensed, Ronaldo removed his captain’s armband as he stormed off and was involved in a verbal altercation with an opposing player.

Three days later, having criticised the players’ commitment against Fahya, Nassr announced Garcia had left the club “by mutual agreement”. Reports suggested the manager’s tactics had been questioned by senior players, including Ronaldo.

On Instagram, the Nassr captain posted a picture with Garcia, with the caption: “Pleasure to have worked with you. Wishing you all the best for the future.”

Nassr lost 2-0 in the Riyadh derby at Hilal to remain three points behind Ittihad, having played a game more.

Ronaldo, who had a goal ruled out late on for a marginal offside before seeing the award of a penalty overturned, was taunted with chants of “Messi” from Hilal supporters on his way off the pitch.

Ronaldo was quickly accused of making an obscene gesture towards rival fans, an allegation that became a hot topic of debate in Saudi Arabia. Nassr later explained it away, saying Ronaldo was simply attending to an injury.

As Nassr's title hopes faded, so too did their chances of collecting more domestic cups. They were dumped out of the King’s Cup semi-final at home to 10-man Wehda, with Ronaldo airing his frustrations when leaving the pitch at half-time. Visibly vexed, he complained vehemently to the Nassr backroom staff.

Within days, reports in Spain surfaced that Ronaldo was unhappy with his first four months in Saudi Arabian and wanted to return to Europe. He responded by reigniting Nassr’s SPL title bid with a goal – his first in four games – and a match-winning display in a 2-1 victory against Al Raed.

Ronaldo scored twice more that month, including a sublime winner against Al Shabab that denied Ittihad the trophy with two games to spare.

Yet, by the time Ronaldo came off with six minutes remaining in the league’s penultimate fixture, Nassr’s title chances were extinguished. Ittihad won 3-0 at Fayha to capture a first Saudi championship in 14 years.

Ronaldo signed off his debut season in the kingdom without a trophy.

He scored 14 times in 16 league matches, but had failed to score in half of those.

If Ronaldo’s inaugural six months in Saudi Arabia failed to yield any silverware, he rectified that at the start of his second campaign.

In August, he was integral to Nassr claiming the King Salman Club Cup, a tournament comprising some of the region’s leading clubs and staged in the Saudi cities of Taif, Abha and Al Bahah.

Ronaldo stepped up time and again, scoring the goal that carried Nassr into the knockout stages, then grabbing the winner in the semi-final with Iraq’s Al Shorta. In the final, Ronaldo got both goals in a comeback victory against Hilal.

With six goals in his final five matches, he collected the award for the tournament’s top scorer. It was a captain’s contribution.

Withdrawn from the showpiece in the closing minutes following a nasty knock to his knee, Ronaldo was seen jumping for joy, King Salman Club Cup – as much his as it was Nassr’s – in hand.

“Extremely proud to help the team win this important trophy for the first time,” he said on social media.

The injury to his knee kept Ronaldo out of Nassr’s defeat in the 2023/24 SPL opener at Ettifaq on August 14, and his return to the team could not prevent his side from falling to a second successive loss, at home to Taawoun.

Ronaldo returned to help Nassr fight back in their Asian Champions League play-off against reigning UAE champions Shabab Al Ahli, clinching the club’s place in the group stages. It also ignited a run of 20 matches without defeat.

Suddenly finding his groove, and undoubtedly buoyed by the summer additions of Sadio Mane, Marcelo Brozovic, Aymeric Laporte, Alex Telles, Seko Fofana and Otavio, a hat-trick in the SPL's third round of fixtures not only got Ronaldo off the mark, it triggered a prolific and prolonged scoring run for club and country. In the next 27 matches, he found the net 29 times.

In late September, after his second goal of the game sealed a 4-3 win against Ahli, Ronaldo told Saudi broadcaster SSC: “I still love football. Even with my age, I still love to play, to score goals, to win games. And I will continue until my legs say, ‘Cristiano is finished.’"

That appeared to be some time off. During his stunning scoring spell, Ronaldo passed the 850-goal mark in his career, scored his 125th goal in international football and got on the scoresheet for the first time in the Asian Champions League.

He even had opposition managers purring.

“When you face Ronaldo, there isn't much you can do,” conceded Christophe Galtier in October, after Ronaldo’s two goals and an assist condemned Al Duhail to a Champions League defeat. “I'm at a loss for words to describe him. What he did today is extraordinary for a 38-year-old. He's still the best player in the world."

Six days later, at a ceremony in Paris, Messi won an eighth Ballon d’Or.

By the end of November, Ronaldo’s manager at Nassr was waxing lyrical about the player’s enduring talent. It came in response to Ronaldo’s decisive double against Al Okhdood, the second scored with a supreme lob from 40 yards.

“Goals and Cristiano are a perfect mix,” Luis Castro said, locking his fingers. “For the second goal, Cristiano shows perfect vision. It’s very difficult to do this, but Cristiano is different. When you are No 1 in the world, everything is possible.”

But within a week, winning the SPL title began to feel impossible. Nassr lost 3-0 in a derby at Hilal, with Ronaldo outshone by former Fulham forward Aleksandar Mitrovic. Ronaldo had a night to forget – on 74 minutes, and with his team 1-0 down, he had a brilliant goal disallowed for a marginal offside. He was indignant.

With the loss – their first in 21 matches – Nassr slumped seven points behind their old foe.

Undeterred, Ronaldo marked his 1,200th professional match with a goal and an assist in a 4-1 win against Al Riyadh, later declaring: “Thankful to all my teammates who helped me reach my 1,200th match. What a ride but we’re not done yet.”

And he wasn’t. On December 11, as Nassr cruised into the King’s Cup semi-finals, Ronaldo reached 50 goals in a calendar year for the eighth time (his record is 69, for Madrid, in 2013).

He added four more in three matches to conclude the year at the top of the SPL’s scoring and assist charts, with 20 and nine respectively, even if Nassr rank second in the table, seven points behind Hilal.

After notching his 54th goal of the year, Ronaldo said: “2023 was a very good year for me, collectively and individually. I scored so many goals and helped the team a lot, both with Al Nassr and the national team.

“I'm really proud. I feel good, I feel happy. And next year I will try to do it again.”

The Ronaldo effect has been felt beyond Nassr, particularly in promoting the SPL around the world. In the four months after he signed, English coverage of the competition swelled by 725 per cent.

SPL’s profile has grown exponentially since Ronaldo arrived, leading to the arrival of other high-profile players.

Last summer, about $1 billion of talent landed in a whirlwind window, including Benzema, Neymar, Mane, N’Golo Kante, Riyadh Mahrez and Jordan Henderson. The knock-on effect on the SPL has been seismic.

In September, between rounds six and seven of the 2023/24 season, official league figures reported substantial growth across several key areas.

New international TV deals, said to encompass 38 broadcasters, mean the league has agreements across 140 territories, with matches shown live in markets including the UK, Spain, Germany, France, Italy and Portugal.

Now the SPL can be viewed in 186 countries. Before Ronaldo was recruited, it was broadcast only in the Gulf.

The league said the broadcast deals led to a 650 per cent increase in revenue, “clear evidence of the SPL’s successful transformation strategy to grow revenue for league and clubs, while increasing the commercial value of the league and attracting investors”.

Meanwhile, the overall attendance for the first six rounds of the new season was tallied at 440,003 – a 25 per increase on last year’s figures for the same period. Nassr’s average home attendance last season from Ronaldo’s debut onwards grew from 65 per cent of the stadium's official capacity of 22,919 to 81 per cent, while their away attendances rose from 65 per cent of capacity to 90 per cent. During the current campaign those figures sit at 89 per cent and 76 per cent, respectively. It must be noted that attendances at some Saudi clubs in 2023/24 have been in the hundreds.

In September, the SPL reported to an “organic growth” of 1.5 million new social media followers across its platforms. Its official English Instagram account, launched two days before the season started, attracted more than 200,000 followers in the first six weeks. Today, it has more than a million.

At last month’s World Football Summit in Jeddah, the SPL said its recent trebling of official partners heralded growth of more than 2,000 per cent in the past six months.

With three partners last season – title sponsors Roshn, Alinma Bank and EA Sports – the number has increased to nine since the summer transfer window. Another four have signed up for the second half of the 2023/24 campaign.

“In US dollar value, that puts us now No 3 in the world as a league [behind the Premier League and Spain’s La Liga],” SPL commercial director Maximilian Haschke said. “In terms of sponsorship revenue as a league, we have in the past six months bypassed our esteemed colleagues from Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.”

The draw of Ronaldo was on full show in September, during Nassr’s Champions League trip to Tehran for the group clash with Persepolis.

Thousands of Iranians lined the streets to catch a glimpse of Ronaldo as the Nassr team bus made its way from Imam Khomeini International Airport to the team hotel, with many raising welcome banners and pictures of the superstar. Hundreds even chased the coach. Ronaldo was presented with a handmade carpet at the airport.

Not only was the match Ronaldo’s debut in the Champions League, it was also the first visit by a Saudi club to Iran since 2016, when the two countries severed diplomatic ties.

For those in Saudi Arabia who cannot get enough of Ronaldo, there is always the CR7 Signature Museum in the capital, launched to coincide with the current Riyadh Season.

“Ronaldo's impact is measured well beyond his impact on the league,” Carlo Nohra, the SPL’s chief operating officer, told The National. “It’s his impact in all the country overall, it's placement on the map as it were.

“But with the league, it's just been unbelievable. The kind of attention that has brought to the league, the quality of other players that it opened the door to, the attendance figures, the general media interest around the world, the commercial interest from partners and broadcasters.

“I can't put a figure out, of course. It's just everywhere you turn you see the impact it has had. And most significantly for me is that it's transcended football.

“For someone of his stature to come here is not something we can measure in numbers. It goes beyond all that. What Cristiano did for the league and for Saudi Arabia is priceless, but the most important thing is that he helped us establish the credibility of what we are trying to do in the league through this transformation strategy.

“Again, it just shows the power of the brand. There are very few players now and in history that sit at that level. Very few would have as big an impact as Ronaldo.”