Ronaldo and the hot seat at Al-Nassr: when stardom overrides the institution

Night in Riyadh, after the stadium lights went out, I stayed behind alone on the twelfth row, where the smell of grass and sweat still lingered. "On an empty pitch at night, I hear the ball breathing." But that night, what I heard was not the ball rolling; it was a rumour running through the phones in the press room: Cristiano Ronaldo might be the reason Al-Nassr's coach loses his job. I took out my notebook, the waterproof pencil still in my coat pocket. Across five stages of holding a pen, I learned one thing — whenever a star is pushed into the position of deciding another person's fate, the real story usually lies where no one wants to look.

The context here is not complicated, but it must be placed correctly. Al-Nassr is one of four powers backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), alongside Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli. The Saudi Pro League — also known as the Roshn League — was designed around big names, and Ronaldo has been the biggest of them since he joined in January 2026. When a league builds its brand on stars, power inside the club shifts too: people begin to weigh the player's wishes before the coach's philosophy. The rumour is spreading from a Saudi television programme called Nadeena, then aggregated by Goal.com from unspecified sources. According to that content, Al-Nassr's coaching seat may be wobbling, and the man mentioned as a replacement is Roberto Martínez — currently Portugal's head coach, said to have a strong relationship with Ronaldo.

The first thing I want to tell you, as someone who has watched football for 53 years, is that the sporting evidence in this story is alarmingly thin. Based on my experience following matches, I always ask myself: is the sample big enough? Here, all that is cited is two league games — one draw, one loss — and a 0-4 defeat to the UAE's Al-Ain in the AFC Champions League Elite. Three matches. Three matches are not enough to conclude a decline, nor enough to conclude a crisis. A coach sacked after two league rounds would be extremely rare, even in a league with a fast turnover tradition like the Roshn League. When a personnel decision is made after three matches, its real motive almost never lies in the results on the pitch — it lies in the power relations inside the boardroom.

The 0-4 defeat to Al-Ain is the only technical detail in the whole story. A four-goal loss in a continental fixture is usually the signature of a high defensive line punished by transition counter-attacks. If Al-Nassr really plays with a high line and high pressing, then that is a structural mismatch with a squad built around a forward already past 39. But I must be honest: the original article provides not a single tactical figure — no xG, no xGA, no PPDA, no formation. We are judging a system whose data we have never seen.

Here appears what I consider the most serious problem, and I say this as a chronicler, not a judge. The source material contains factual contradictions that can affect the entire conclusion. It names Al-Nassr's coach with a name that does not match the public record, and it mentions a "Portugal coach" when the recognised Portugal head coach is Roberto Martínez — the very man the article says could replace the incumbent. When a source contradicts itself on the most basic details, every conclusion drawn from it must be downgraded to medium confidence or lower. "My notebook still holds a few drops of Moscow tears." And in that notebook, I also wrote a principle: never build a big story on a cracked foundation.

The core point here, what readers may not have realised: this is not the story of a coach about to lose his job — it is the story of a star being placed above the institution itself. The rumour says the seat wobbles "because of Ronaldo", and the replacement was chosen because he "has a good relationship with Ronaldo". If that is true, the appointment criterion is no longer tactical ability or squad fit, but a personal relationship with the club's biggest commercial asset. In governance studies, this is called a distortion of the agency relationship: a sporting decision serving one individual's preference rather than the collective interest.

The rumour's transmission chain deserves dissection. It did not begin with a long losing run, but with a television programme, then was aggregated, then spread through social media. The pressure is generated by internal leaks, not by the record. This kind of pressure tends to be self-fulfilling: once the press has written about an imminent sacking, the sacking becomes more likely regardless of results. I have seen this many times in many countries, and it always leaves the same smell — the smell of the boardroom, not the smell of grass.

Another financial aspect deserves mention. Sacking a coach who only took charge at the start of the season means accelerating the amortisation of his contract — a sunk cost that repeats every time the club churns managers. For Al-Nassr, a PIF-backed club, the absolute sum may not be the issue. The issue is the quality of the decision. A change made in the middle of a crisis, with the replacement chosen for his relationship with the star rather than for tactical fit, is a governance cost — far more expensive than the severance fee.

On the league's chessboard, Al-Nassr is not a challenger but an incumbent power. Its risk is not being poached of its star, but losing itself in the whirlpool of constant managerial change. The four big clubs share a state ownership structure, meaning their competitive and governance dynamics are interwoven. A decision at Al-Nassr can set a precedent for Al-Hilal, and vice versa. In such a system, a star is not merely a player — a star is part of the power structure.

The contrarian angle I want to put on the table is this. People are telling the story of Ronaldo as a "kingmaker" — one who can decide who sits and who stands. But try reversing it: if a coach is truly sacked at a player's wish, then the successor who walks in will also inherit a tenure with an extremely fragile basis of authority. He will sit on the very seat from which his predecessor was just dragged, under the very gaze that dragged him down. Such a position is not an appointment; it is a suspended debt. And in football, tenures that begin with a debt usually end earlier than average.

There is another thing that troubles me. Ronaldo is depicted simultaneously as the solution — determined to give everything — and as the cause — with influence that can decide a coach's fate. The same man, two contradictory roles. In the opinion cycle, this is a sign of an overheated phase: the story's heat has far outstripped the sporting foundation beneath it. On top of that, the reported troubles in Portugal's national team — described as a dead end — pour another psychological variable into the club dressing room. When the biggest star is not at peace in his national colours, that unease flows back to the club, then flows back out again. It is a loop that leaves both sides more vulnerable.

I do not want to end with a prediction. "They call me a dreamer. But the ball has never hidden anything from me." The ball taught me that what is worth chronicling is not who will sit in the coaching seat next month, but how a football nation chooses to arrange its power. If a league builds itself on stars, it must live with the consequence: the star will demand a say in matters that belong to the coach and the board. Al-Nassr, as a state-backed power, has enough money to pay any severance. What it may not have enough of is patience — and patience is the only thing that cannot be bought with oil.

That night, as I left the stand, I heard the footsteps of a cleaner collecting plastic cups. He knew nothing about Roberto Martínez, about Nadeena, about the posts scrolling by. But he is the one who stays last in this stadium, longer than any coach. "69 years, I still believe a beautiful pass is a declaration of love." And perhaps, in a world where a star can change another person's fate with a phone call, the truest declaration of love is still the words of those who are never named.