Al-Nassr claimed a 1-0 victory against Steven Gerrard’s Al-Ettifaq in the King Cup’s round of 16 on Tuesday evening.
The Riyadh outfit were looking to capitalise on their momentum after earning vital wins over Damac, Al-Duhail, and Al-Fayha.
They were handed a double boost before facing Al-Ettifaq as Aymeric Laporte and Marcelo Brozovic returned to the starting lineup after missing out on Al-Nassr’s last league game due to injury.
Despite that, Al-Ettifaq dominated the opening minutes of the game with goalkeeper Nawaf Al-Aqidi being called into action twice to keep the scoreline level.
It took 20 minutes for Al-Nassr to create their first real opportunity when Cristiano Ronaldo skipped past Al-Ettifaq’s Mohamed Youssef and fired a shot at the far post but was blocked by Marcel Tisserand.
Former Everton winger Demarai Gray nearly opened the scoring for Al-Ettifaq after 30 minutes as he went through on goal and rounded Al-Aqidi, but his attempt was cleared off the line by a recovering Abdulelah Al-Amri.
At the stroke of half-time, Al-Nassr finally found the breakthrough when Anderson Talisca slotted the ball into the back of the net from a Sadio Mane cross but the Brazilian’s strike was controversially ruled out by VAR for offside.
Just seconds later, the visitors were reduced to ten men when Talisca received a straight red card following an altercation with Hamdan Al-Shamrani.
The second half did not prove to be as eventful as the first 45 minutes but also had its share of controversial decisions in Al-Nassr’s favour.
Ali Hazazi was sent off for Al-Ettifaq in the 89th minute after stopping Otavio from initiating a quick counter-attack to send the game to extra time.
In the 107th minute, Mane broke the deadlock for Al-Nassr as the Senegalese lost his marker and got on the end of a driven cross to score the winner for his side.
Al-Nassr will look to make it five wins in five games when they host Al-Khaleej in the Saudi Pro League’s 12th round on Saturday, November 4th.