Cristiano Ronaldo Starts 2026 With Rare Three-Game Slump

As the new year unfolded, Cristiano Ronaldo found himself in unfamiliar territory, suffering a three-match losing streak with Al-Nassr to begin 2026. The run included a pivotal 3-1 derby defeat to Al-Hilal that flipped a title race and widened the gap at the top to seven points. Ronaldo even opened the scoring in that match, but a second-half collapse featuring a Salem Al-Dawsari penalty, a red card to Nawaf Al-Aqidi, and late goals from Mohamed Kanno and Al-Hilal sealed the comeback.

While Ronaldo has endured three consecutive losses before, most notably during his second stint at Manchester United in 2022, never had such a sequence arrived at the very start of a calendar year, turning the slump into a statistical outlier in a career typically defined by consistency and resilience. Inevitably, Lionel Messi’s name entered the conversation. The Argentine has likewise experienced brief periods of three straight defeats, though they have tended to surface during transitional or congested phases.