Al-Wehda send Al-Nassr and Ronaldo crashing out of the King's Cup

A bad few days for Al-Nassr and Cristiano Ronaldo became much worse on Monday with a shock 1-0 loss to Al-Wehda in the semi-final of the King’s Cup. The Riyadh giants' best chance of silverware has gone and their league title hopes are looking slim as the season moves into the final stages.

It was another miserable evening for Ronaldo. He caused controversy in last week’s loss to bitter Riyadh rivals Al-Hilal by grabbing his crotch at the end of the game as gleeful home fans chanted Lionel Messi’s name. This time, there was little mocking at the final whistle; the visiting players and fans were too busy celebrating a famous win and a final appearance against Al-Ittihad and this time, he knew that he had --and missed --his team's best chances.

Al-Nassr had plenty of the ball and possession but Al-Wehda, who have struggled near the bottom of the Roshn Saudi League all season, worked hard especially after being reduced to ten-men early in the second half.

The game started positively for the hosts but somehow Ronaldo couldn’t open the scoring early in the game. The five-time Ballon D’or winner got on the end of a perfect left-sided cross from Ghislain Konan but shot straight at goalkeeper Munir Mohamedi from the edge of the six-yard box

His frustration, and that of the watching home fans, grew as Al-Wehda took the lead in some style midway through the first half. A corner was not cleared sufficiently by the Yellows and a series of headers led to Oscar Duarte finding Jean-David Beauguel. The Frenchman still had a lot of work to do with the ball at shoulder height but he threw himself into the air to twist and volley home, taking goalkeeper Nawaf Al-Aqidi by surprise.

It was a fine goal and inevitably, it prompted a