Trezeguet Injury Shocks Al-Riyadh Fans Before Al-Ahli Match

On the day Al-Riyadh needed calm, they got chaos instead.

Hours before kick-off against Al-Ahli in the fifth round of the Saudi Roshn League at Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City Stadium, Mahmoud Hassan "Trezeguet" vanished from the team sheet.

Not rested. Not on the bench. Not there at all.

When Al-Riyadh’s official account posted the starting XI and substitutes on X, fans scanned the list once, then again. No Trezeguet. Confusion turned quickly into fury. Comments poured in, demanding an explanation, questioning how the club’s standout summer signing could simply disappear without a word.

The anger had context. Just 24 hours earlier, the club had shared images from the final training session before the Al-Ahli game. Trezeguet featured in them, moving freely, part of the group, seemingly ready for a key league test. There was no hint of a problem, no warning that anything might be wrong.

So when his name was missing, supporters feared the worst and heard nothing. Silence from the club only deepened the frustration.

The clarity finally came from the stadium itself. Reporting from Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City Stadium, a correspondent for "Thmanyah", the Saudi league’s broadcaster, confirmed that Trezeguet’s absence was due to injury. No specifics, no timeline. Just one stark fact: Al-Riyadh would face Al-Ahli without their Egyptian winger.

For a player who arrived this summer with weighty expectations, the timing could hardly be worse. Trezeguet joined Al-Riyadh in the current transfer window from Egypt’s Al-Ahly after just one season there, brought in to add end product and personality to a side trying to establish itself in a fiercely competitive league.

Now, as Al-Riyadh walk into one of their biggest early-season tests, they do so under a cloud of unanswered questions about the fitness of their marquee signing—and the communication breakdown that left their own fans in the dark.