Why Did Al Nassr Drop Cristiano Ronaldo & 5 Players in AFC Champions League? Reason Behind Their Exclusion vs Al Duhail

Al Nassr hasn’t lost a game in quite a while. When the Riyadh-based club continued its top form with a 2-3 win against Al Dulhail yesterday, many wondered why Cristiano Ronaldo missed this game. Along with ‘CR7’, five other players were dropped as well. But Al Nassr’s head coach, Luis Castro, shared the reason behind it. What would have happened?

Cristiano Ronaldo, Aymeric Laporte, Abdullah Al-Khaibari, Nawaf Boushal, Raghed Al-Najjar, and Abdulaziz Al-Eliwa weren’t a part of the latest win against Al Dulhail.

Head coach clears the air behind Cristiano Ronaldo’s absence

In the press conference before the match, Luis Castro said, “Cristiano Ronaldo’s absence is due to fatigue.” After hours of concerns raised by the soccer universe, it was finally clear why Castro was forced to take such measures, as he didn’t want to risk a potential injury.

“I respect the media, but you have to show respect to me. I did not wake up and decide to rest Cristiano Ronaldo. He played 210 minutes in four days and his body showed that he was not ready for the Al-Duhail match”.

The decision to omit those six players was aimed at preventing injuries. After the coach, he needs his players to be well-rested for the next league match against Al-Wehda.

In Cristiano Ronaldo’s absence against Al Duhail, Anderson Talisca decided to take matters into his own hands. The Brazilian scored a hat-trick and made sure that his team flew back home with a victory. But was Ronaldo’s absence merely to prevent injury or were other aspects into play?

Was Ronaldo getting dropped a strategy?

Al Nassr is four points off the top of the table. A loss in their next match against Al-Wehda means they would drop further down. ‘CR7’ and other players getting much-needed against Al Duhail rest means they can return to the next match to face Al-Wehda in peak form. But it doesn’t end there.

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ACL allows only five foreigners to play, whereas Al Nassr has eight. His resting allowed another foreign player, Anderson Talisca, to prove his mettle. It seems like head coach, Luis Castro, took up a rotation strategy to give Ronaldo rest and let other foreign players dominate Al Duhail.

League games take place every 2-3 days and this rotation strategy seems to balance out the strain on players. What do you think?

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