Football · News Corner

Al Nassr Thrash Pakhtakor 6-2 in Tashkent Without Ronaldo as João Félix Scores Twice

By Beauty of Bharat · Published 4 November 2026

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What happens when a team's most famous player does not even travel — and the team still scores six goals away from home? Al Nassr answered that question in Tashkent on 2 November 2026, beating Pakhtakor 6-2 in the AFC Champions League Elite with João Félix scoring twice and creating two more, in a match Cristiano Ronaldo watched from afar after being rested for the trip to Uzbekistan.

How the six goals fell

Al Nassr settled this match early. Abdullah Al-Hamdan opened the scoring in the 15th minute, and João Félix doubled the lead just two minutes later. When Félix struck again in the 32nd minute, the visitors were 3-0 ahead inside the first third of the game, and the contest had already taken on the shape it would keep for the rest of the evening: Al Nassr attacking in waves, Pakhtakor chasing the game.

Pakhtakor did respond before the break. Flamarion pulled a goal back in the 36th minute, giving the home crowd something to hold on to at half-time with the score at 3-1. Any hope of a comeback, though, faded quickly after the restart. Abdulelah Al-Amri made it 4-1 in the 53rd minute, and substitute Abdulrahman Ghareeb added a fifth in the 62nd. Dostonbek Khamdamov gave Pakhtakor a second goal in the 75th minute, but Ângelo Gabriel restored the four-goal margin four minutes later, completing the 6-2 scoreline in the 79th minute.

The pattern of the evening mattered as much as the margin. Every time Pakhtakor scored, Al Nassr answered. The hosts' first goal was followed by two more from the visitors; their second goal was followed by one more. That is why a 6-2 scoreline, which can sometimes flatter a winning side, felt like a fair reflection here: the away team scored in both halves, through five different players, and never allowed the home side to get within two goals after the opening half-hour.

Félix at the centre of everything

If one player owned this match, it was João Félix. The Portuguese forward finished with two goals and two assists, a contribution that touched four of Al Nassr's six goals. He set up Al-Hamdan's opener, scored the second and third goals himself, and supplied the corner from which Al-Amri headed home the fourth. It was the kind of all-round attacking display that decides away games in continental competition, where a single moment of quality can quiet a home crowd — and Félix produced several.

His two goals also told the story of Al Nassr's early dominance. The first, in the 17th minute, came almost immediately after the opener and stopped Pakhtakor from settling into the match at all. The second, in the 32nd minute, came from a pass by Sadio Mané and turned a strong start into a commanding lead. By the time the teams walked off at half-time, Félix had already shaped the result, and his second-half corner for Al-Amri's goal underlined that his influence did not end with his own scoring.

Mané's contribution deserves a note of its own. The Senegalese forward provided the pass for Félix's second goal and then set up Ghareeb's fifth, meaning two of Al Nassr's most productive attackers combined repeatedly throughout the evening. When a side can call on that kind of link-up play away from home, in a competition as demanding as the AFC Champions League Elite, it becomes very difficult to contain — as Pakhtakor discovered.

Winning without Ronaldo

The most talked-about part of this match happened before a ball was kicked. Al Nassr travelled to Uzbekistan without captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who was rested for the trip along with Kingsley Coman and Mohamed Simakan. For a team so closely identified with its captain, that could have been a serious handicap. Instead, Al Nassr produced their biggest AFC Champions League victory, surpassing their previous 5-1 wins over Al Wahda and Al Ain.

Head coach Ange Postecoglou rejected any suggestion that the six goals had something to do with Ronaldo's absence. "It has nothing to do with that," he said. "In the previous game, with Ronaldo, we scored five goals and he scored a hat-trick." The point was a simple one: this is a squad with goals in it beyond its captain, and the Tashkent performance was evidence of depth rather than evidence of a team that functions better without its star.

That framing matters for how the result should be read. Al Nassr did not win because Ronaldo was absent; they won because the players who did travel performed, with Félix leading the way and five different players finding the net. The victory was the club's second consecutive win in the competition and its second win from three matches played, after its game against Al Wasl was postponed. It also showed why resting senior players on a long away trip can be a calculated choice rather than a gamble — provided the replacements deliver, as they did here.

Context and what to watch

For Pakhtakor, this defeat extended a difficult start to the league phase. The Uzbek side are still without a win after four matches, holding two points from those four games. A home defeat by four goals is a painful way to extend that run, and it leaves them with serious work to do if they are to climb back into contention in the remaining league-phase fixtures. Two goals against strong opposition showed some attacking life, but conceding six at home showed the scale of the gap they must close.

For Al Nassr, the picture is very different. Six points from three matches, built on two consecutive wins, puts the Saudi side in a strong position in the West Region standings, with a postponed fixture still to be played. Scoring six goals away from home, without their captain, sends a message to the rest of the competition about the depth of their squad — and about the form of Félix, whose two goals and two assists made him the central figure of the matchday.

The wider context is worth keeping in mind too. The AFC Champions League Elite is the continent's premier club competition, and its league phase rewards consistency over a long campaign rather than a single night's brilliance. One emphatic away win does not settle anything on its own, but it does change the arithmetic: Al Nassr have points on the board and momentum, while Pakhtakor need results soon if their winless start is not to define their campaign. The next round of fixtures will show whether Tashkent was a turning point for one side, a warning for the other, or both.

What to watch next

Watch whether Félix can carry this form into Al Nassr's next continental fixture, and whether the returning rested players sharpen a side that has just scored six without them. For Pakhtakor, the question is more urgent: can they turn two goals at home into a first win of the league phase, and tighten up a defence that conceded six? The answers will shape both clubs' campaigns far more than a single night in Tashkent.