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A video of football star Cristiano Ronaldo wearing a yellow jersey and scoring a goal in a stadium is going viral with a claim that it shows Ronaldo scoring his first-ever goal for the Saudi Arabian football club, Al-Nassr.
It is being circulated after he recently signed with the club in a record-breaking deal following his controversial exit from Manchester United.
At the time of writing this report, the video had garnered more than 1,30,000 views on Twitter. (Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)
A longer version of the video is also being shared (archive here), which shows Ronaldo getting ready for the match.
Fun fact: Ronaldo has not even made his debut for the Saudi Arabian club as a two-match ban was imposed on him in November 2022.
England's Football Association imposed the ban after Ronaldo smashed a fan's phone in Everton.
The incident happened when Ronaldo was associated with Manchester United.
He was expected to serve the suspension in England but he signed a new deal with the Saudi-Arabian club post the World Cup. As a result, the Portuguese forward would have to sit out two games.
Where is the video from?: The video is from 23 August 2021 and was recorded during a match between Juventus and Udinese in 2021-22 Italian Serie A. During this time, Ronaldo was playing for Juventus Football Club.
How did we find out?: Towards the end of the video, when Ronaldo scores the goal and hugs his teammates, we noticed the logo of Juventus on a teammate's jersey.
Taking this as a cue, we performed a keyword search which led us to a video uploaded on an unverified YouTube channel.
The video was uploaded on 26 August 2021 and was titled, "Cristiano Ronaldo Vs Udinese Away HD 1080i."
At around the 2:25 mark, we can see Ronaldo dressing up for the match as seen in the longer version of the viral video.
We can also see the goal scored by the footballer, followed by the celebrations, at around 4:21 timestamp.
The match ended up in a draw after Ronaldo's goal was disallowed.
The highlights of the match are also available on the official channel of Serie A, which has the clip of the goal seen in the viral video.
Conclusion: Ronaldo is yet to make his debut for Al-Nassr. Therefore, the claim of him scoring his first goal for the club is false.
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