Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (ABU DHABI)
From 4.30pm on Wednesday, the lanes around Al Wahda Mall and its connecting stadium steadily filled with yellow shirts and, for nearly six hours, the colour dominated the area. It was so striking that nobody noticed the sun turning orange or the black skies forming above the stadium’s floodlights.
One number — 7 — stood out on those shirts worn by most of the 15,818 people at Al Nahyan Stadium.
It was a crowd gathered for one reason: Cristiano Ronaldo, CR7. Fans arrived hours before the 7.30pm kickoff for a friendly between hosts Al Wahda and Al Nassr, the Saudi Arabian club the football star plays for.
Many even loitered in the parking lot of the Grand Millennium hotel, where the team bus waited to bring in the players. From capturing the moment Ronaldo stepped out of the hotel lobby to the 45-odd minutes that the Portuguese star spent on the field, the spotlight never drifted away.
The bustling yet subdued energy inside the stadium before the opening whistle felt almost at odds with the yellow blanket unfolding across the stands. But 12 minutes after the match began, that calm fizzled out. A backpass from Al Nassr found its way to Ronaldo, who pounced on it like a tiger and slammed the ball into the back of the net with ferocity. A roar of delight erupted.
As fans perked up in their chairs, with not one empty spot in sight, their hopes for another Ronaldo goal spiked each time the Portuguese star made a dash toward the Al Wahda net. A flurry of goals did follow, but none of them came from him.
The first half saw four goals divided among both teams, indicating this was hardly a friendly. Al Nassr used this trip for winter training as Saudi league leaders while Al Wahda are second to Al Ain in the ADNOC Pro League standings.
After the break, Al Nassr managed to find two more goals, including an unfortunate one for the Al Wahda goalkeeper who could not prevent the ball from popping out, allowing the perfectly positioned Haroune Camara to tap it in. Since the substitute had come in for Ronaldo, the goal was enough for fans to start heading out, even as teams rotated players at will and the match petered off.
Ronaldo said last month that the 2026 World Cup in United States, Canada and Mexico will be his swansong before retirement. Unless both clubs feature in the Asian Champions League or the Saudi Super Cup, until then, this could be Ronaldo’s last couple of appearances in Abu Dhabi, if not the last.
With his final minutes on the pitch counting down, the 46 minutes of spotlight on Ronaldo was nothing less than a halo effect — a yellow one.
