Crespo 5 Ronaldo 0: Al Ain boss aims to extend career-long dominance on visit to Al Nassr

Hernan Crespo 5, Cristiano Ronaldo 0. That’s the overall scoreline of fixtures, spread over more than 20 years of meetings between the head coach of Al Ain and football’s apparently ageless icon, a Ronaldo who, come Monday, should be a little concerned his 40th year is to pass by without a medal.

If 5-0 becomes 6-0, or there’s a draw over 90 minutes in Riyadh in the second leg of the Asian Champions League quarter-final Al Ain lead 1-0 at halfway, then the prospect of a CR7 club season finishing without a significant trophy looms large.

Ronaldo’s Al Nassr drift ever further back in the Saudi Pro League’s title race. Progress in the main continental competition now requires a comeback. And there cannot be too many seasons left for Ronaldo, the trophy recruit in the ambitious Saudi hiring of global talent, to add to his stack of career honours.

To Crespo, much credit for leaving the tie leaning narrowly in Al Ain’s favour ahead of the away leg. Tactically disciplined, they maximised limited goalscoring opportunity in Abu Dhabi and, with a grateful nod to some sharp goalkeeping from Khalid Eisa, kept a clean sheet against an Al Nassr who had scored at least once in all but one of their previous 33 fixtures. Ronaldo, on a run of 10 goals in 11 games when he arrived in Abu Dhabi, drew a blank.

Crespo, working his way around significant absences through injury to his Al Ain squad, is entitled to call himself CR7’s enduring nemesis, especially if he takes the long view of all their duels.

Crespo versus Ronaldo, as players, always finished with Ronaldo on the losing side. Back then they used to cross paths as a record-breaker and a record-breaker-in-waiting. There’s a nine-year age gap, but in their parallel journeys from