The victory saw the Saudi heavyweight join Al Sadd, which beat Al Wasl 4-2 on aggregate, in progressing to April’s quarterfinals in Jeddah.
Having missed the first-leg goalless draw in Tehran, Ronaldo returned to the starting lineup with Duran and Sadio Mane providing support from the flanks.
But it was Esteghlal who had the first shot on target in the second minute when Mehran Ahmadi cut into the box from the right, but his tame effort was comfortably gathered by Al Nassr keeper Bento.
Al Nassr gradually took control, repeatedly targeting Ronaldo with crosses into the box. The breakthrough came in the ninth minute when Duran capitalized on Seyyed Hossein Hosseini’s careless pass, calmly lobbing the ball over Esteghlal’s keeper.
Hosseini denied Ronaldo’s 18th-minute free-kick, but the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s persistence paid off when he intercepted Raphael Silva’s poor back pass and found Mane inside the box with a sublime back-hill touch, before the former Liverpool striker was brought down by Zobeir Niknafs, with the Portuguese captain slotting home the spot-kick for his seventh goal in this year’s competition.
Things went from worse to worst for the Tehran Blues in the closing stages of the first half when Ahmadi elbowed Mohammed Al Fatil and was sent off for a second booking after a VAR review.
Esteghlal had Hosseini and the woodwork, on a couple of occasions, to thank for avoiding a humiliating scoreline in the second half, but Duran still settled the tie in the 84th minute after collecting substitute Angelo’s pass inside the six-yard-box to strike home into the bottom left corner.
“There is not much to say, we conceded two goals at the beginning of the match, then one of the players was sent off which made the match difficult for us, and Al Nassr deserved to win,” head coach Miodrag Bozovic, who was in charge of the Blues bench for only a third game, said after the game.
“Al Nassr handled this match correctly, and the match ended early after the two goals and the red card.
“We had a negative thing in this match, which was losing tackles, and whoever loses tackles always loses the match,” added the Montenegrin.
The result wrapped up a dreadful campaign for the two Tehran archrivals at the revamped Asian elite clubs’ competition, underlining the widening gulf between the Iranian club football and its Middle East rivals.
Persepolis – the dominant force of the Iranian top flight for nearly a decade – failed to progress to the knockout phase after finishing ninth in the west zone’s 12-team table in the league stage. The two Iranian clubs managed a combined three victories across 18 games in the competition, suffering eight defeats in total.
Iran Daily