Come for Jhon Duran's farcical red card, stay for Cristiano Ronaldo's almighty meltdown

Cristiano Ronaldo has thrown an almighty tantrum after his new team-mate Jhon Duran picked up one of the most ridiculous red cards you’ll see all season.

Watching the farcical scenes in the closing stages of Al-Nassr’s 3-2 Friday night defeat to Al-Ettifaq, we couldn’t help but be reminded of a recent viral tweet from @shornKOOMINS:

“When Gary Neville says “you wouldn’t see this in under 9s or under 10s football” – you would though, wouldn’t you. In an U9s game I once saw a goalkeeper shout to his teammate, as the game was going on, “JAMES, HAVE YOU FINISHED CHARLOTTE’S WEB YET?”

Here are scenes you absolutely would see in an Under-9s match, from the red card itself to Ronaldo’s reaction. Strap in for some absolute nonsense.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Neither Ronaldo nor Duran were on the scoresheet as Al-Nassr approached the closing minutes of a damaging defeat to midtable Al-Ettifaq, who sacked Steven Gerrard last month.

It was actually two altogether less heralded lights – Saudi Arabia internationals Ayman Yahya and Mohammed Al-Fatil – who had put Al-Nassr into a 2-1 lead.

It looked as though they were cruising to a fifth successive league win, their title challenge still just about alive and boosted by the big-money January arrival of Duran.

The hosts didn’t bargain for things going spectacularly wrong in the closing 10 minutes.

First up centre-back Al-Fatil went from hero to zero, cancelling his goal at the right end with an own goal. Then former Liverpool midfielder and Al-Ettifaq captain Georginio Wijnaldum scored his second goal of the game to put the visitors 3-2 ahead in the 89th minute. And then all hell broke loose.

In the aftermath of Al-Ettifaq’s celebrations, Duran gave a playful slap to the back of the head of Ettifaq midfielder Abdulelah Al-Malki after he kicked the ball away. You can skip past Ronaldo’s animated remonstrations to see the offence:

Cristiano Ronaldo n’a pas su cacher sa colère après l’exclusion de son tout récent coéquipier Jhon Duran 😳 Carton rouge et énervement justifié selon vous ?#ronaldo #alnassr #cr7 pic.twitter.com/IkQXQuynH7 — CANAL+ Foot (@CanalplusFoot) February 21, 2025

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In fairness to Ronaldo, you can understand the disbelief. Duran had been done like a kipper by Al-Malki, who – in the parlance of Neil Warnock – threw himself to the ground like a sack of spuds.

The 40-year-old veteran then took all his frustration out on the ball, blasting it from the centre circle into the stands.

Cristiano Ronaldo was left FUMING after Jhon Duran received a bizarre red card 🤬🟥 📹 pic.twitter.com/hmejr0JvRV — Mail Sport (@MailSport) February 21, 2025

“I’m not happy with the red card, [but] our players have to be calm,” responded Al Nassr boss Stefano Pioli.

“We could have played better, but mistakes cost me a lot today and caused the loss. Today’s match started well and we took the lead, but what made the difference were the mistakes.

“Everyone is responsible for mistakes, I am the first one responsible for correcting mistakes and we do the work very seriously. We did not lose the match for tactical reasons, but because of the individual mistakes we made.”

Ronaldo has found the right environment to pad his stats on the final few legs of his quest to reach a thousand goals, but his wait for silverware out in the Middle East looks set to continue until 2026. The last time Cristiano Ronaldo won a major club title was May 2021, the Coppa Italia, when he was at Juventus.

Al Nassr now find themselves eight points behind Karim Benzema’s Al-Ittihad, having played a game more.

No wonder he was fuming.

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