Hernan Crespo can write his name into Al Ain folklore by winning Asian Champions League

It represents something of a quirk that the Asian Champions League has provided the nadir of Hernan Crespo’s still-emergent managerial career yet could soon offer its zenith.

In charge last year of Al Duhail, the Qatar club he guided to a treble in his debut season in the Gulf, the Argentine experienced arguably his worst night as a coach.

Duhail, never so deep into the continent’s premier club competition, were swatted aside by Al Hilal in a one-legged, and tremendously one-sided, semi-final in Doha. They were four goals down within 27 minutes, Odion Ighalo and Co rampant, and even conceded another before half time.

In the end, Duhail would lose 7-0, Hilal pouring forward but then perhaps putting on the brakes. It was already an evisceration; swelling the scoreline further felt almost cruel.

Crespo stood on the touchline at Al Thumama Stadium, a venue that had hosted eight Fifa World Cup matches not long before, unable to stop the bleed.

Afterwards, he spoke of Hilal’s pedigree – they are record four-time Asian champions – of his own club’s inexperience at that level, of the accompanying pressure to perform, of influential players unavailable for selection.

Lessons needed to be learnt, Crespo reminded. Conceivably, that applied to him as much as his team.

Yet, little more than a year later, and having departed Duhail and promptly landed at Al Ain, Crespo appeared to have practised what he preached.

Up against an even starrier Hilal in the semi-final, the Saudi Arabians stacked with prime foreign recruits, Crespo offered before the first leg that the tie would convey, not only how much his side had grown since his November appointment, but himself as a manager, too.

The result suggested considerable progress had been