Al Nassr invested almost 900,000,000 dollars in the previous two years in player compensation and wages to do what he never did – to win the Asian Champions League trophy. And this season, this dream will remain – a dream. Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates triumphed on penalties to knock out Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane and Marcelo Brozovic’s team in the quarter-finals of the continental competition.Ronaldo teammates letting him down once again pic.twitter.com/g8mzwkqDcf— Janty (@CFC_Janty) March 11, 2024 The visitors’ goalkeeper Khalid Eisa conceded two amateur goals during the regular course, but he completely erased the moments of unconsciousness with bravado in the penalty shootout. The experienced goalkeeper saved Marcel Brozović and Alex Telles from the penalty spot, and then Ottavio also missed the penalty, ending Cristiano Ronaldo’s dreams of adding another prestigious trophy to his trophy cabinet. After 120 minutes of play, the score was 4:3 for Al Nassr (total 4:4), and in the penalty shootout, the team of the iconic Argentinian Hernan Crespo triumphed with 3:1.Cristiano Ronaldo failed to make a difference in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, he had several big misses, and the one in the 62nd minute, when he sent the ball wide of the goal from a meter and a half away, is especially embarrassing. The 39-year-old scored a goal from the penalty spot in the 118th minute to win the penalty shootout for his team, but he was often significantly less of a threat from the game than, for example, teammate Ottavio or the inspired Moroccan Sufiyan Rahimi on the other side. It’s unreal how Al Nassr managed to go to extra time at all, considering that they were losing 3:0 on aggregate towards the end of the first half.##NAJAVA_MECA_7950669##The mentioned goalkeeper could have been a complete tragedy, because he allowed Ottavio to force him into an own goal with a kick from a dead angle, and before that, the UAE representative desperately ran away from the goal and gifted the home team the first one. Al Nassr ‘smelled the blood’ of their rivals in front of a packed stadium of their supporters, but the breakthrough goal before extra time was missed. When the hosts were left with a player less after Ayman Yahya’s red card in the eighth minute of extra time, it seemed that Crespo’s boys would take the initiative again. Just when it seemed that everything was over, Luis Castro’s chosen ones won the penalty shootout. The extent of Al Ain’s surprise is best shown by the fact that they won against a team that cost 24 times as much money to build, counting only compensations, not salaries (then the difference would be even bigger).
