It felt a genuine “where were you?” moment.

On Thursday night at Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium in Jeddah, 37 minutes into Al Ahli’s Roshn Saudi League clash with Al Najmah and with the hosts 1-0 down, Ivan Toney failed to convert a penalty.

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That’s right. Victor Braga saved the England hopeful’s spot-kick low to his right, and Toney’s incredible streak in Saudi Arabia was done. To this point, he’d coolly dispatched all 17 previous attempts in the RSL. Overall, his record at Al Ahli read 24 penalties taken, 24 scored.

But this was the one; the anomaly. The proof, Toney later conceded, that he was indeed just like the rest of us.

“It shows I’m human,” Toney smiled. “Yeah, it happens. Everyone can miss a penalty.”

It appears, though, that Toney can do it only once. Showing immense mental fortitude, he rebounded to hit a second-half hat-trick, including a confidently converted penalty in injury-time. It lifted the encounter from a draw to give title-chasing Al Ahli a crucial 4-1 win.

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That’s what the best strikers do. They don’t dwell; they don’t sulk. Instead, they recover to extend their lead at the top of the 2025-26 RSL scoring charts to five – Toney has 23 goals in 21 appearances this season – and at the same time shoot their team to joint-top of the table.

Toney’s treble – remarkably, his third in seven league matches – pushed Al Ahli into second, level on 53 points with leaders Al Hilal, who host Al Ittihad on Saturday in the hugely anticipated Saudi Clasico.

Against bottom club Al Najmah, Al Ahli rallied to remain well in the hunt for a first top-flight title in a decade. The fightback was led by their on-fire No.17.

“Everyone can miss penalties, but it’s how you bounce back,” said Toney, who has 18 goals in his past 12 RSL outings. “I bounced back today and got the hat-trick.

“I wouldn’t sleep easily because of the missed penalty; I wouldn’t sleep for a while as I would be thinking about it. But if someone told me to miss one penalty for a hat-trick, I’d take it.”