Ronaldo promised comeback in vain, Al-Nasr drops out of Asian Champions League

Cristiano Ronaldo has been promising fans a comeback on his Instagram ahead of the rematch with Al-Ain. The Saudi Arabian club already has almost zero chance of winning the domestic title, making the continental competition almost the only option for the team around the Portuguese superstar to win the trophy.

The first match

Al-Nasr had a game in hand over their opponents in the United Arab Emirates, at least statistically. The home team threatened mainly from fast breaks. The visitors’ defence, led by Laporte or the offensive Telles, was not up to the task. Al-Nasr could be glad that the match ended with only a one-goal difference in favor of the opponent.

in the 28th minute, Kaku split the net behind Ospina, but the joy lasted only a moment, as VAR eventually disallowed the goal due to offside. Just before half-time, however, the home side were rejoicing, specifically Morocco’s Rahimi. Rahimi rejoiced in the 72nd minute, but the goal was again disallowed by VAR due to offside.

Ronaldo promises comeback

Surely every fan of the Portuguese and, probably, Atlético Madrid remembers the situation before the rematch of the Champions League eighth finals in 2019. Juventus lost the first duel on the opponent’s field 0: 2 and most experts expected only a symbolic rematch at the stadium in Turin.

However, Ronaldo sent a message to fans before the game to “be ready for the comeback”. After Ronaldo’s hat-trick, Juventus won 3: 0, advanced and the Madrid team and its fans were left with nothing but eyes to cry. A similar situation repeated itself this time.

After a failed away match in which even Ronaldo was not very visible on his Instagram profile on the day of the match, the Portuguese added a post with the caption “be ready for a comeback”. The caption is obviously related to the situation in Juventus colours.

The return match

However, the Yellow and Blue entered the second match in the same way as the first one. In the opening 45 minutes, Rahimi scored twice again. Ghareeb kept the home team’s hopes alive in the first half by reducing the score to 1: 2. The hope of at least equalizing the score was alive.

The second half opened with an own goal by the visiting Eisa. Alex Telles scored the expected equalizer in the 72nd minute. And everything pointed to the home team turning the game around. However, no goal was scored by the end of regulation time and extra time had to be added on, which in itself was certainly over schedule.

In addition, in the 98th minute, Yahya was red-carded by the home team and Al-Nasr finished the game shorthanded. In the 103rd minute, the visitors went ahead again when Al Shamsi scored to make it 3-3. However, out of the blue, Ronaldo was fouled in the opponents’ penalty area in the 118th minute. And he converted the penalty himself to send the match to a penalty shootout.

On the home side, only Ronaldo succeeded out of 4 enforcers. Brozovic was saved by the visiting goalkeeper, Telles hit the crossbar and Otávio even headed wide of the left post. For the visitors, all 3 enforcers scored and Al-Ain can celebrate their unexpected qualification to the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League.

Source: Asian Champions League