Leandre Lawamba and Ahmed Saleh Bahusayn scored goals to help Al Taawoun defeat Al Nassr 0-2 in round two of the Saudi Pro League on Friday at the KSU stadium in Riyadh. This was Al Taawoun's first victory of the year.
First-half goals by Lawamba and Bahusayn both came off the head, with the latter coming in the final seconds of extra time.
The Knights suffered a difficult home loss tonight, making it their second consecutive loss of the year.
After missing the season's first game last week due to injury, Cristiano Ronaldo made his season debut and started. He participated throughout the entire match as Al Nassr tried to catch up while the Wolves created opportunities on the break.
Ronaldo struck early from outside the box, but the shot was saved by keeper Mailson, who continued to have a good game with the gloves along with his backline defenders
In the 20th minute, Tawamba headed the ball into the net off a corner created by Taawoun to give the visitors the lead.
Because of some outstanding defending by the Wolves in the backline, the hosts kept creating opportunities thanks to Sadio Mane but were unable to capitalise.
After Fofana was fouled by Faqeehi at the very end of the first half, the referee gave Al Nassr a penalty. The judgement was reversed, though, and the hosts were held scoreless in the opening period after the referee reviewed the VAR.
The home team launched constant attacks from the right and left flanks to open play or corners to start the second half. Al Nassr attempted 13 corners but failed to score on any of them.
Taawoun was waiting for opportunities to launch a counterattack.
In the sixth minute of extra time, Sadio Mane did score, but it was disallowed due to offside. The Wolves had the ideal chance to counter, and they did so when Bahusayn struck a shot to the right after Mateus had taken the custodian out of play and back passed the ball into the box.
Al Taawoun earned its first victory of the season, while Al Nassr continued to make futile attempts.