Al Ain oust Ronaldo’s Al Nassr from ACL

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr crashed out of the Asian Champions League (ACL) within the quarter-finals after the Saudi Pro League facet misplaced 3-1 on penalties to Al Ain in a pulsating recreation on Monday.

Al Nassr overturned a 1-0 first leg deficit to win 4-3 on Monday however with the competition ending 4-4 on mixture, the gamers headed right into a shootout from which the UAE facet prevailed.

The Saudi crew’s overseas imports Miroslav Brozovic, Alex Telles and Otavio all failed to attain from the spot as Al Ain superior to the semi-finals, the place they’ll face both Al Hilal or Al Ittihad – each from Saudi Arabia – subsequent month.

Al Ain goalkeeper Khalid Eisa made amends for a disappointing show when he saved Brozovic’s opening penalty and, with Soufiane Rahimi, Kaku and Sultan Al Shamsi all changing, Otavio’s miss meant Al Nassr have been eradicated.

The shootout introduced a dramatic finish to an exciting conflict at Al Awwal Park that featured seven objectives and a pink card, with Al Ain constructing on their first leg lead through the opening 45 minutes.

Rahimi, scorer of Al Ain’s first leg winner, put the guests in management with objectives within the twenty eighth and forty fifth minutes however Abdulrahman Ghareeb’s strike 5 minutes into damage time stored Al Nassr’s hopes alive.

Otavio’s low drive was redirected into his personal aim by Khaled Eisa six minutes after the restart and Alex Telles levelled the mixture scores 18 minutes from time with a low free kick that flew by way of a crowd of gamers to beat Eisa.

Al Nassr’s Ayman Yahya was despatched off for a vicious two-footed lunge on Bandar Al Ahbabi eight minutes into additional time and, a minute later, Al Shamsi thought he had scored the winner when he capitalised on Raghid Najjar’s dealing with error to poke house.

But Ronaldo scored from the penalty spot with two minutes remaining, after the Portuguese striker was taken down within the space by Saeed Jumaa, to take the sport to a shootout.

Ronaldo was the one one in all Al Nassr’s 4 penalty takers to efficiently convert as Al Ain superior to the final 4 for the primary time since 2016.

Elsewhere, Ulsan Hyundai booked their place within the semi-finals as Seol Young-woo’s volley secured a 1-0 win over fellow South Korean facet Jeonbuk Motors to seal a 2-1 mixture victory.

Seol struck two minutes into stoppage time on the finish of the primary half to arrange a final 4 assembly subsequent month with both Yokohama F Marinos or Shandong Taishan.