Cristiano Ronaldo has been left out of Al Nassr’s squad for their AFC Champions League Elite trip to Uzbekistan, with wider security concerns continuing to disrupt Asian football. However, head coach Ange Postecoglou said the decision to rest the Portugal forward, Kingsley Coman and Mohamed Simakan was based on fixture congestion and the demands of travel.
Al Nassr face Pakhtakor in Tashkent on Monday without Ronaldo, who scored a hat-trick in last week’s Saudi Pro League match to take his career tally to 985 goals. The 41-year-old is now 15 short of the 1,000-goal milestone.
“We rested them given the pressure of matches and the amount of travel involved,” Postecoglou said at his pre-match news conference.
The coach’s explanation came against a backdrop of growing concern over security in Saudi Arabia. Al Nassr’s previous Champions League fixture against UAE side Al-Wasl was postponed after the visitors declined to travel to Riyadh.
A home match on 12 October had also been delayed by an hour following reports of missile attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Al Nassr have struggled in the western section of the competition, sitting ninth in the 16-team group. Only the top eight sides in each regional group advance to the knockout stage, leaving the Saudi club outside the qualification places.
The security situation has also raised questions over Saudi Arabia’s preparations to host the Asian Cup, which is scheduled to begin on 7 January 2027.
Japan Football Association president Tsuneyasu Miyamoto said last month that the situation remained unsafe and that staging the tournament as planned could prove difficult.
AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa has said the governing body can monitor developments until the end of November before making a decision. He has also acknowledged that the tournament could be postponed until 2028 if necessary.
