When you have already been waiting three and a half years, you should be able to cope with a delay of a week or so.
Just so long as it does happen eventually. And for Cristiano Ronaldo, Saudi Pro League success is going to feel like the ultimate deferred gratification.
His Al Nassr side remain firmly in charge of their own fate. They are in the driver’s seat, even if their coronation was snatched away from them in bizarre circumstance with just seconds to go on Tuesday night.
Notwithstanding the stoppage time meltdown of their goalkeeper, Bento, the point they gained against their bitter rivals Al Hilal still edged them closer to their goal.
But really, the job should have been done already. It wasn’t even the last kick of the Riyadh derby. It didn’t go near anyone’s feet. Just like no Hilal attackers went near Bento.
With time added on for stoppages at the end of the game nearly elapsed, Ali Lajami, a second-half substitute for Hilal, chucked it hopefully towards goal.
Joao Felix, the Nassr forward, made a slight, half-baked move towards the ball, but Bento has dealt with worse jostling than that.
And yet he fluffed it, allowing the ball to slip through his grasp, somehow with enough force for it to land behind him, across his goal line.
Has he dropped the SPL title? Probably not. Nassr still have the mission in their own hands. All they have to do now is beat lowly Damac, who themselves will need to win to avoid relegation, on Thursday, May 21 and the title will be theirs.
A draw in that fixture might not be enough. In that case, if Hilal win their remaining two matches, they would match the points total of Nassr, and take the title on account of a superior head-to-head record in the matches between the two sides. That, rather than goal difference, is the SPL's first tie-breaker.
Nassr might already have another trophy safely stashed away by that point anyway. They host Gamba Osaka of Japan in the AFC Champions League Two final on Saturday.
But the Bento blooper certainly punctured the party atmosphere at Al Awwal Park. How the Nassrawi would have loved to have won it in the presence of their hated rivals.
The implosion at the end was all too much for some, with fighting breaking out, centring on a corporate box behind the away supporters’ area.
The frustration of both fans was understandable. Nassr’s on account of the fact the title had literally just slipped from their grasp; Hilal’s because of the meekness of their side’s performance.
How this incarnation of Saudi Arabia’s most successful club are still in the running for a domestic double, let alone potentially going to go through the season unbeaten, is remarkable.
Given the magnitude of the occasion, it was odd how subdued their main stars were. These are players who have decorated the league brilliantly since joining the Public Investment Fund-led gold rush after 2022.
And yet they look inhibited by the strategies of Simone Inzaghi, their Italian coach.
In the continued absence of their injured talisman Kalidou Koulibaly, Inzaghi has played Ruben Neves in a central defensive role.
It has diluted the Portuguese schemer’s influence, reducing his attacking threat to a few long-range, quarter-back style passes.
Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, the heartbeat of Hilal for the past three seasons, was parked out on the right for much of the game against Nassr.
When he did get the ball, often the Serbian midfielder used it sloppily, like when he presented Kingsley Coman with a golden chance to score at the end of the first half.
In the final count up, Coman’s wastefulness from that position – he fired against the post with the goal at his mercy - was just as important as Bento’s late lapse.
Worst of all was Karim Benzema. The least said about the French striker’s duel with his former Real Madrid teammate Ronaldo the better. He was abject.
When Benzema and Salem Al Dawsari, the Hilal captain who had been similarly ineffectual, were substituted in the second half, it felt like a tacit admission their race was run.
Nassr were closing out the win with great poise. They had managed the game savvily since Mohamed Simakan, their French centre-back, had given them the lead from a corner near the end of the first half.
Jorge Jesus, the Nassr manager who had guided Hilal to the SPL title two seasons ago, was even able to give Ronaldo his own curtain call.
The 41-year-old forward was substituted with eight minutes to go. Whereas Benzema had hurried from the field with his head down, pausing briefly for a hug with Ronaldo, Ronaldo’s exit was a triumphant one.
He waved his arms manically, evoking roars from the thrilled crowd. It felt like a ceremonial ushering in of glory.
And then Bento dropped the ball. The glory will have to wait.
