Al-Nassr Beat Pakhtakor 6-2 as Postecoglou Brushes Off Ronaldo Question

Al-Nassr’s 6-2 win over Pakhtakor showed the team can produce a forceful attack without Cristiano Ronaldo in the lineup. João Félix scored twice in Uzbekistan on Tuesday (AEDT), and coach Ange Postecoglou declined to treat Ronaldo’s absence as the story of the night. The scoreline gives that response some weight: Al-Nassr found six goals through the players available, rather than relying on a single headline name to explain its attacking output. One match can’t settle a broader argument about how the side performs with or without Ronaldo, though. It does show that, on this occasion, his absence didn’t prevent Al-Nassr from overwhelming its opponent.

Ronaldo, 41 and a five-time Ballon d’Or winner, was rested for the AFC Champions League Elite match after scoring a hat-trick in 15 minutes in Al-Nassr’s previous game. The Saudi Pro League side has now won six straight matches across all competitions. That run provides useful context for the decision to rest him: the team arrived in Uzbekistan after a productive stretch, and Ronaldo had just played a decisive role in the preceding match. The available facts don’t establish whether the rest was part of a longer plan or a response to the schedule. They do make clear that his absence came after a particularly high-impact performance, not during a slump in which the club needed to make a dramatic change.

Before kickoff, Pakhtakor coach Kamoliddin Tajiev had suggested Al-Nassr might be more dangerous without Ronaldo. Asked about that claim after the match, Postecoglou pointed to the team’s output with the forward in its prior game: “But Cris played the last game and we scored five goals.” It’s a compact rebuttal, grounded in a recent result rather than a sweeping theory about the team’s identity. Tajiev’s comment framed Ronaldo’s absence as a possible advantage for Al-Nassr; Postecoglou’s answer pushed back on the premise that the team’s scoring depends on which version of its attack is available. Neither result, by itself, proves how the side would perform across a longer run of matches in either configuration.

He said the players who took the field against Pakhtakor had performed at a “very strong level,” and noted that the hosts had made life difficult for other Saudi teams. Al-Nassr’s attacking play, he said, “was very, very good”; he added that he expected it would have been strong with Ronaldo available, too. That qualification matters. Postecoglou praised the players who took part, while resisting the idea that the performance required Ronaldo to be absent. His point was that a strong team display can coexist with a star forward’s importance. It’s a less dramatic reading than the pre-match suggestion, but it fits the evidence he chose to cite: five goals with Ronaldo in the previous game, followed by six without him in this one.

Al-Nassr’s position in both competitions

The result lifts the broader picture for a side competing on two fronts. Al-Nassr sit third in the Saudi Pro League, two points off the lead, and fifth in the ACL Elite West League Phase with six points from three matches. UAE side Al Ain are six points ahead. Those standings place the win in context: Al-Nassr are close to the domestic lead, while they have ground to make up in the continental phase. A high-scoring victory improves the immediate mood, but the table still describes a team with work ahead in the competition where it trails Al Ain.

Postecoglou praised the performance and its six goals, saying Al-Nassr had “fully deserved to win the game.” The word “deserved” is a judgment on the match, not a prediction about what follows. A result like this can strengthen confidence in the depth of the squad, particularly when a rested star’s teammates carry the scoring burden. But the standings are shaped by points collected across matches, and this win alone doesn’t erase the gap to the West League Phase leader. The practical reading is narrower: Al-Nassr produced a convincing result while continuing to chase on both fronts.

What the Ronaldo debate can—and can’t—show

The temptation after a 6-2 scoreline is to turn one lineup choice into a verdict: either Al-Nassr is better without Ronaldo, or his presence makes no difference. Neither conclusion follows from the facts here. The team scored five in its previous game with him, then six against Pakhtakor without him. That comparison shows scoring capacity in both circumstances, but it doesn’t isolate the effect of one player. The opposition, match conditions, and the contributions of the rest of the team all sit inside the results, and the source offers no basis for separating their influence.

That said, this is more significant than it looks. For a club competing in two tournaments, a convincing performance when a major forward is rested can ease pressure on the idea that one player must carry every attack. It also gives the coach a straightforward public message: the group that played against Pakhtakor was capable of delivering, and Ronaldo’s availability wouldn’t have ruled out a strong performance either. Here's the thing: depth is demonstrated through results, but one result can only demonstrate so much. A six-goal night is evidence of a productive team display, not proof that the same output will recur whenever the lineup changes.

If you're working in this space, the useful question is less whether Al-Nassr is “more dangerous” without Ronaldo and more whether it can sustain a threat across different lineups. That’s the point a single match leaves open. The six-match winning streak and the five-goal performance with Ronaldo suggest the attack has been productive across recent games; the Pakhtakor result adds another example. The next challenge is keeping that output connected to results in both competitions, where the club’s current positions show different kinds of pressure.

And yet. The scoreline will keep the debate alive, because a dominant win without a celebrated forward makes an easy headline. The standings offer a cooler measure: Al-Nassr are third domestically and fifth in the continental phase, with Al Ain six points clear. Postecoglou’s answer was careful, and the available record supports that care. Al-Nassr have shown they can score heavily with Ronaldo and without him. Whether that flexibility changes their prospects over time remains unanswered.