Persepolis Eliminated from Competition After Defeat by Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal

In the return leg of the Round of 16 of the AFC Champions League, Persepolis lost 3-0 to Al-Hilal at King Fahd Stadium in Riyadh. With this result, after Tractor Sazi and Foolad, Persepolis became the third Iranian club to exit the competition, leaving only Naft Tehran in the tournament. Naft Tehran is set to face Al-Ahli of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night. Previously, Persepolis had suffered two similar 3-0 defeats against Al-Nassr of Saudi Arabia and Lekhwiya of Qatar. The first leg between Persepolis and Al-Hilal ended with a 1-0 victory for the Reds, and they could have advanced with a 2-1 loss in the return match, but Branko Ivankovic's team could not capitalize on the first leg's result. Omid Alishah, Ahmad Nourallahi, Mehdi Taremi, and Mohammad Noori were among the players who performed better than their teammates. In the 29th minute, Youssef Salem scored the first goal for Al-Hilal. In the 56th minute, a handball by Nourmohammadi in the penalty area led to a penalty kick scored by captain Shalhoub, which went in the opposite direction of goalkeeper Sosha Makani. In the 92nd minute, after the Reds missed several not-so-serious opportunities, Al-Dosari scored the third goal for Al-Hilal in the penalty area. Following this, Mehdi Taremi was sent off after receiving a second yellow card. The Persepolis players in this match were Sosha Makani, Reza Nourmohammadi, Michael Omaniah, Babak Hatami, Hamidreza Ali-Asghar, Ahmad Nourallahi, Mohammad Noori, Reza Khalighifar (Ali Alipour in the 88th minute), Hadi Noroozi, Omid Alishah, and Mehdi Taremi. On the morning of the match, Branko Ivankovic intended to take his players to the gym, but hotel officials announced that the team needed to pay 1500 Saudi Riyals. According to domestic news agencies, this amount was not available to the Reds, as Nejadfalah and other Persepolis officials were not with the team in such a critical situation and had gone to Mecca for pilgrimage. This led to a bizarre situation where Branko had to use the hotel corridors for running and warming up his team. A video of this incident has been shared on social media.