The 2013 AFC Champions League was the 32nd edition of the top-level Asian club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

tournament organized by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly ...

(AFC), and the 11th under the current

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition ...

title. The defending champions,

Ulsan Hyundai Ulsan Hyundai FC ( ko, 울산 현대 축구단) is a South Korean professional football club based in Ulsan that competes in the K League 1, the top tier of South Korean football. Founded in 1983 as Hyundai Horang-i, they joined the K League in ...

, failed to qualify for the tournament. In the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

, Chinese team

Guangzhou Evergrande Guangzhou Football Club, formerly known as Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club, is a professional Chinese football club that participates in the Chinese Super League under the license of the Chinese Football Association. The team is based ...

defeated South Korean team

FC Seoul FC Seoul ( ko, FC 서울) is a South Korean professional football club based in Seoul that competes in the K League 1, the top flight of South Korean football. The club is owned by GS Sports, a subsidiary of GS Group. They play their home game ...

on away goals to win their first title, becoming the first Chinese team to win the AFC Champions League (and the second Chinese team to be crowned Asian club champions after

Liaoning FC Liaoning Football Club (), officially known as Liaoning Hongyun (), was a professional association football club with a long history in Chinese football. The club can predate their formation to 1953, when Shenyang government sports body joined ex ...

and Third Final of Chinese team after lost of

Liaoning F.C. Liaoning Football Club (), officially known as Liaoning Hongyun (), was a professional association football club with a long history in Chinese football. The club can predate their formation to 1953, when Shenyang government sports body joined ex ...

agenst

Esteghlal F.C. Esteghlal Football Club ( fa, باشگاه فوتبال استقلال, ''Bâšgâh-è Futbâl-è Esteqlâl''), commonly known as Esteghlal ( fa, استقلال, meaning 'The Independence'), is an Iranian football club based in capital Tehran th ...

of Iran at 1990–91 AFC Club Championship, and qualified for the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup.

Allocation of entries per association

The AFC laid out the procedure for deciding the participating associations and the allocation of slots, with inspection of the associations interested in participating in the AFC Champions League to be done in 2012, and the final decision to be made by the AFC in November 2012. The following criteria for participation in the AFC Champions League were proposed by the AFC in July 2012: *The member association (MA) has to acquire a minimum number of 600 points out of a possible 1000 according to the AFC evaluating system to qualify for participation. *The slots for each eligible MA are decided based on the points ranking of the MAs: **The top two ranked MAs in both the East and West zones get four direct slots each. **The third-ranked MAs get three direct and one play-off slot. **The fourth-ranked MAs get two direct and one play-off slot. **The fifth-ranked MAs get one direct and one play-off slot. **The sixth, seventh and eighth-ranked MAs get only a play-off slot each. *The maximum number of slots for each MA is one-third of the total number of clubs in the top division (e.g., Australia can only get a maximum of three total slots as there are only nine Australia-based clubs in the

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

). On 29 November 2012, the AFC Executive Committee approved the slots for the 2013 edition of the AFC Champions League. However, this final allocation of slots did not fully follow the proposal above. ;Notes

Teams

The following teams entered the competition. ''In the following table, the number of appearances and last appearance count only those since the 2002–03 season (including qualifying rounds), when the competition was rebranded as the AFC Champions League.''

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws held at AFC headquarters in

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Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

Format changes

The following changes in the format of the competition were made compared with the previous year: *Losers of the AFC Champions League qualifying play-off did not participate in the AFC Cup. *The round of 16 was played over two legs on a home-and-away basis instead of as a single match. *The final was played over two legs on a home-and-away basis instead of as a single match.

Qualifying play-off

The draw for the qualifying play-off was held on 6 December 2012. Each tie was played as a single match, with

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only ...

and

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

used to decide the winner if necessary. The winners of each tie advanced to the group stage to join the 29 automatic qualifiers. , - !colspan=3, West Zone , - !colspan=3, East Zone ;Notes

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 6 December 2012. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Each group was played on a home-and-away round-robin basis. The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to the round of 16. ;Tiebreakers The teams are ranked according to

points Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Points ...

(3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order: #Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches a ...

resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned #Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned (

away goals The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

do not apply) #Goal difference in all the group matches #Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches #

Penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play #Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches (1 point for a single yellow card, 3 points for a red card as a consequence of two yellow cards, 3 points for a direct red card, 4 points for a yellow card followed by a direct red card) #Drawing of lots

Group A

Group B

;

Tiebreakers In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests. General operation In matches In some situations, the tiebreaker may consi ...

*Al-Ettifaq are ranked ahead of Pakhtakor on head-to-head record.

Group C

Group D

Group E

;

*Buriram United and Jiangsu Sainty are tied on head-to-head record, and so are ranked by overall goal difference.

Group F

;

*Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors are ranked ahead of Urawa Red Diamonds on head-to-head record.

Group G

Group H

Knockout stage

In the knock-out stage, the 16 teams played a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

. Each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. The

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

(away goals do not apply in extra time) and

were used to decide the winner if necessary.

Bracket

Round of 16

In the round of 16, the winners of one group played the runners-up of another group in the same zone, with the group winners hosting the second leg.

Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final (to decide the order of two legs) was held on 20 June 2013. In this draw, teams from different zones could play each other, and the "country protection" rule was applied: if there are exactly two teams from the same association, they may not play each other in the quarter-finals; however, if there are more than two teams from the same association, they may play each other in the quarter-finals.

Semi-finals

Final

Awards

Top scorers

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Afc Champions League 2013

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