The 1-0 defeat to Al Ain in the first leg of the continental quarter-finals was followed by a 3-1 loss to Al Raed in a Saudi Pro League 2023\/24 tie on Thursday, which all but shattered their title hopes.<\/p>\n
Adding to head coach Luis Castro’s woes is a growing injury list with Anderson Talisca among those who were already sidelined ahead of the Al Raed match, with the Brazilian’s season over after having undergone surgery in Milan .<\/p>\n
Sultan Al Ghannam and Aziz Behich also missed the Saudi Pro League tie while Ayman Yahya – who scored against Al Raed – also picked up a knock. Aymeric Laporte is suspended after being sent off in the first leg against Al Ain. <\/p>\n
Castro, speaking after last week’s first leg loss, admitted that the injuries have taken a toll on his side but was adamant that Al Nassr will do their best to turn their fortunes around in the return encounter.<\/p>\n
“We are halfway through this challenge and for now, qualifying for the semi-final looks difficult but we still have another 90 minutes in Riyadh,” said Castro.<\/p>\n
Al Ain, meanwhile, will fancy their chances of getting the job done after their impressive first leg win. <\/p>\n
Hernan Crespo’s side followed up that victory by qualifying for the UAE League Cup final, progressing after defeating Ittihad Kalba on penalties.<\/p>\n
Crespo, who steered Qatar’s Al Duhail SC to the AFC Champions League 2022 semi-finals, expects his side to remain focused as they seek to win the title for a second time. <\/p>\n
“We managed to get a well deserved win, and produced a good performance but the quarter-final match is not finished yet,” Crespo had said after the first leg. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 1-0 defeat to Al Ain in the first leg of the continental quarter-finals was followed by a 3-1 loss to Al Raed in a Saudi Pro League 2023\/24 tie on Thursday, which all but shattered their title hopes. Adding to head coach Luis Castro’s woes is a growing injury list with Anderson Talisca among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":954087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20967],"tags":[3733,28042],"class_list":["post-954086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afc-news","tag-afc","tag-afc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=954086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/954087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=954086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=954086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=954086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}