Al Ain, coached by Argentine Hernán Crespo, won this Monday in the penalty shootout against Al Nassr and left Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo’s team out of the Asian Champions League after an intense duel in the second leg of the quarterfinals. final in the Riyadh team won 4-3 after overcoming a 0-2 deficit and neutralizing the 1-0 in the first leg achieved by the Emirati team.
The Moroccan Soufiane Rahimi, scorer of Al-Ain’s winning goal in the first leg, put Al Nassr even more on the ropes with a goal in the 28th minute, from a pass from the Paraguayan Alejandro Romero ‘Kaku’, who took advantage of the advanced defense of the Raid team. And again Rahimi, the tournament’s top scorer, dealt another blow that already seemed lethal to Portuguese Luis Castro’s team in the first minute of the extension of the first act against the ineffective local defense at the KSU Stadium. The overall tie was already 0-3.
Al Nassr saw some light in the fifth minute of added time, when Abdulrahman Ghareeb scored at will and Sadio Mané passed after a crazy start by goalkeeper Khalid Eisa chasing the Senegalese around the area. Luis Castro’s men definitively entered the tie in the 52nd minute thanks to an own goal by goalkeeper Khalid Eisa after an attempted cross from the right by the Portuguese Otávio.
Al Nassr began to believe in the comeback and in the 73rd minute, after a flurry of local chances, some of them from Cristiano Ronaldo, the Brazilian ex-Sevilla player Alex Telles equalized the tie with a direct free kick without apparent excessive danger, but the defense of the Al Ain was unable to neutralize. The game went to extra time.
Extra time started with another setback for Al Nassr. Ayman Yahya was sent off for a harsh tackle on Al Abdullah Khaibari. Initially the local player saw the yellow card, but the referee reviewed the play on the VAR and changed it to a straight red card.
Al Ain took advantage of their numerical superiority and in the 103rd minute came Sultan Al Shamsi’s goal to make it 3-3, but with one left in extra time Cristiano Ronaldo scored a penalty committed on himself by Juma Hassan to score the 4- 3 and send the duel to throws from eleven meters.
In the penalties only Cristiano scored his shot. The Croatian Marcelo Brozovic, Telles and Otávio failed. For Al-Ain, Rahimi, Kaku and Al Shamsi scored the three shots that were enough.
Al Ain, champion of the tournament in 2003, will play in the semifinals against the winner of the match between the Saudi teams Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal, which will be resolved this Tuesday with a 2-0 advantage for the second.
