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8 hours ago
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Cristiano Ronaldo has yet to win a major trophy – the Arab Club Champions Cup does not count – since signing for Al-Nassr in December 2022 and the 40-year-old’s best chance this season is the AFC Champions League Elite. The Riyadh club are nine points off the top of the Saudi Pro League but should get past Esteghlal of Iran in the last-16 of the continental competition next week. With the games from the quarter-final stage onwards taking place in Saudi Arabia, this could be the year.
Head coach Stefano Pioli has not quite brought the fluency required to a team that still rely too much on individual talent in individual moments but in a cup competition perhaps that will be enough, especially when you add Jhon Durán. The Colombian has already shown his goalscoring prowess and could make the difference for the club and Ronaldo, who scored six goals in the group stage.
The biggest obstacles for five-time Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldo are the Saudi rivals Al-Hilal and Al-Ahli, also backed by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. Saudi Arabia’s combined record from the group stage was: played 24, won 19, drawn four and lost one.
Last time there were 40 clubs divided into 10 groups. Now the word Elite has been added to the tournament’s name and almost half the teams dropped. There are two pools of 12, west and east. Similar to Uefa’s version, each club plays eight games and the top eight from each group go through (though that was not the case this time – more of that later).
In the west, Al-Hilal finished top. The four-time champions have been struggling a little domestically of late and are missing the injured Aleksandar Mitrovic but there is good news for them in that Pakhtakor are the knockout opposition. They finished the group stage 15 points apart, as the Uzbek club made it through with just one win out of eight. That doesn’t sit too well, even if there were bigger issues (again, more of that later).
Al-Ahli have Ivan Toney and Riyad Mahrez enjoying themselves in attack. The Jeddah club should have too much for Qatar’s Al-Rayyan. The more storied club from the 2022 World Cup host country, Al-Sadd, will expect to get past Dubai’s Al-Wasl. It was expected that the representative from the United Arab Emirates would be Al-Ain but the defending champions, who defeated Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal last time around, finished bottom, which cost Hernán Crespo and his replacement, Leonardo Jardim, their jobs as coach.
In the east, the Japanese trio of Yokohama F Marinos, Vissel Kobe and Kawasaki Frontale advanced with the minimum of fuss. None have won before and the same is true of the others who made it through: Gwangju of South Korea, the south-east Asian duo of Buriram United of Thailand and Malaysia’s Johor Darul Ta’zim. Then there are the two Chinese clubs, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai Port.
The presence of the last of those teams is hugely controversial and embarrassing – or should be. Port finished eighth, two points above Pohang Steelers. Yet a look at the table reveals that the South Koreans played just seven games, one fewer than Shanghai. One can only imagine the reaction had this happened in Europe.
Shandong Taishan of China decided not to travel to South Korea on 19 February for the last game of their group against Ulsan HD. The reason cited was the “serious physical discomfort of team members”. More likely was the prospect of serious discomfort if Ulsan fans held up images of Tiananmen Square from 1989 or Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh.
Two weeks ago, Ulsan’s K-League rivals Gwangju travelled to Shandong and were greeted by fans holding photographs of the former South Korean dictator Chun Doo-hwan. This was especially provocative for Gwangju as Chun sent troops into that city in 1980 to brutally suppress a student uprising. Shandong apologised but paid the price by not travelling.
Pohang paid a bigger one. When North Korea refused to host Japan in 2026 World Cup qualification, they were hit with a 3-0 forfeit and everyone carried on. Had the same punishment been applied in the Champions League, few would have noticed. Shandong would have made it through anyway and Ulsan were already out.
Instead, the Asian Football Confederation ruled that Shandong were deemed to have withdrawn from the competition and their results were erased. This would not have been a big issue in the old four-team groups when everyone plays each other home and away but becomes tricky when all the teams face eight different opponents just once.
Pohang found their 4-2 win over Shandong from November had been chalked off and they were eliminated. Shanghai Port, who had not faced Shandong, were not affected and squeezed through thanks to having played a game more. Pohang are furious. Privately, AFC officials have admitted the rules need examining. It may take similar intervention from above to stop Saudi Arabia’s clubs from claiming the glory.
