Al-Nassr vs Al-Kholood: Ronaldo's 15-minute hat-trick takes him to 985 goals
Al-Nassr won a wild 5-3 in Riyadh after trailing early. How Ronaldo scored all three, how far he is from 1,000, and when he could get there.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored three goals in 15 minutes on Thursday night as Al-Nassr beat Al-Kholood 5-3 at Al-Awwal Park in Riyadh. The hat-trick takes his career total to 985 by the most widely used count, leaving him 15 short of 1,000 official goals.
That number is why “Al-Nassr vs Al-Kholood” topped Google searches in Pakistan overnight, with more than 20,000 searches. Ronaldo still has a huge following here, and every goal now feels like part of a countdown.
How the game went
This was not a stroll. Al-Kholood, who sat in mid-table before kick-off, went ahead in the 16th minute through Julien Domingues. Angelo Gabriel equalised in the 24th minute and Sadio Mané put Al-Nassr in front in the 38th, but Antoine Essomba made it 2-2 in first-half stoppage time.
For an hour, Ronaldo was quiet. Then the game turned.
Ronaldo’s three goals, one by one
- 66th minute: a simple tap-in after João Félix pulled the ball across. 3-2.
- 72nd minute: a header, again from a Félix delivery. 4-2.
- 81st minute: Mané found him inside the box and he finished. 5-2.
By one stats count, it was the 67th hat-trick of his career. Domingues scored a penalty deep in stoppage time to make it 5-3, which looked better for Al-Kholood than the second half felt.
On the numbers, Al-Nassr had 16 shots to Al-Kholood’s six and kept 54 per cent of the ball. Their defence was the worry: Al-Kholood scored three times from five shots on target, and goalkeeper Bento had a rough night.
Is it 985 or 984?
Most counts now have Ronaldo on 985 career goals for club and country. A few have him one lower because of an earlier goal some record-keepers list as an own goal. Either way, he is in the mid-980s, and that small gap is why you will see both figures on social media this week.
When could Ronaldo reach 1,000 goals?
There is no fixed date. At a goal a game he would need 15 more matches, and hat-tricks like this one shorten the wait. Al-Nassr’s next league game is against Al-Hazm on 5 November. Portugal also have international fixtures before the year ends, and those goals count too.
Ronaldo turns 42 in February. He has said publicly before that reaching 1,000 is a goal he wants, and on Thursday he scored three of them in 15 minutes.
The Félix connection is worth watching as well. Two assists in six minutes shows how Al-Nassr are building their attack around getting the ball to Ronaldo in the box rather than asking him to create.
Al-Nassr play Al-Hazm next, on 5 November. If he keeps scoring like this, the 990s could arrive before the end of the year.
