In the early morning of the 18th, the Saudi League ushered in a key battle, star Cron continued his brilliant debut in the Year of the Dragon, breaking the goal in two consecutive matches, helping Ainas narrowly beat Aifaat at home by 2-1. Putting aside penalty kicks, Cron scored a total of 715 goals in his career in all tournaments, surpassing his old rival, Mez, by one goal, to be crowned the "non-penalty" goalscorer.
Ainas defeated Efateh in the first leg of the Round of 16 in the last round of the AFC Champions League, with Cron contributing a crucial goal in his 1,000th club game to take the spotlight. This time against Efateh, the 39-year-old Portuguese international broke the deadlock in the 17th minute of the match to start the scoring journey.
Despite Efate's attempt to equalize on the stroke of halftime, Cron came up trumps again with his individual ability. He sent a sublime diagonal pass to his teammate Egalan on the right, who quickly crossed for Odavio Emerson to leap and head home.
Cron had a chance to score twice when he calmly broke through the opposition defense in the box, only to be blocked by an Efate player in time to defuse the close call, but in the end Ainas took all three points.
