Cristiano Ronaldo: Nightmare week for Al Nassr star as trophy hopes fade

Cristiano Ronaldo proclaimed pre-match with a wide smile, “Remontada, inshallah”, but in the end it was not how he envisioned it.

Al Nassr were 1-0 down halfway through the two-legged Asian Champions League quarter-final with Al Ain, and their captain, perhaps partially playing to the crowd, declared to the gathered media that the comeback was on.

A day later, at a fevered Al Awwal Park in Riyadh, Nassr seemed set to do just that, only even more impressively. Two-nil down in Tuesday’s return match and thus 3-0 behind in the tie, the Saudi Arabian side’s continental hopes were fading fast.

Al Ain, sublime in the first leg last week, had been superb for the majority of the opening half. Sofiane Rahimi, scorer of the only goal in the UAE, got another two in the Saudi capital, Nassr seemingly negated, Al Ain apparently sailing through.

But, deep into additional time at the conclusion of a frantic and frenzied first 45 minutes, goalkeeper Khalid Essa went chasing after Sadio Mane, Abdulrahman Gareeb finished, and Nassr had their lifeline.

Less than half an hour of play later, they had overall parity. Essa deflected Otavio’s cross into his own goal, then failed to deal with Alex Telles’ whipped free-kick. Nassr levelled the quarter-final at 3-3.

When Al Ain profited early in extra-time from another goalkeeping mistake, this time from the hosts’ Raghed Al Najjir, Ronaldo responded with two minutes remaining to seemingly tee up his remontada, the Spanish word for comeback. When all around him people were losing their heads, the Portuguese coolly dispatched a penalty, tying the score at 4-4 on aggregate.

By then, Nassr were down to 10 men, Ayman Yahya receiving a straight red for a two-footed lunge on Bandar Al Ahbabi. Mane could