The AFC Cup 2020 is the 17th season of the second most important Asian competition for club teams in football after the Champions League since it was founded in the 2004 season . 48 clubs from 28 national AFC associations are taking part in the competition this season . The season begins with the first qualifying round on January 21st and is expected to end with the final on November 7th, 2020.
The defending champion is the Lebanese club al Ahed .
The pairings in the two qualifying rounds were set according to the AFC four-year evaluation 2017, which was divided into the five regions, and the access list, with matches between teams from the same national association being excluded. The qualifying rounds will be decided in the return leg , whereby the club from the higher-ranking association has home rights in the second leg. In the event of a tie, the away goals rule applies first. If this does not lead to a winner, extra time will be played and then a penalty shoot- out if necessary .
The seven winners of the play-off round advance to the group stage. The losing teams are eliminated.
First qualifying round
The games took place on January 22nd and 29th, 2020.
36 clubs take part in the group stage. 29 teams are directly qualified, plus 7 (one each from four of the five regions and three from the southeast region), who qualify via the play-off round. The group draw took place on December 10, 2019 in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur . The teams were drawn into nine groups with four participants each. The table on the right shows the distribution of the groups in the respective regions.
The group winners and the best runners-up in groups A to C and groups F to H qualify for the regional semi-finals, while the group winners of groups D, E and I qualify for the interregional semi-finals. All other teams are eliminated from the competition. If two or more teams are tied, the placement is determined by the following criteria:
Number of points in direct comparison
Goal difference in direct comparison
Number of goals in direct comparison
Number of away goals in direct comparison
If, after applying criteria 1 to 4, there are still several teams in the same place in the table, criteria 1 to 4 are reapplied, but only to the matches between the teams in question. Should this also not lead to a definitive placement, criteria 6 to 10 will be applied.
Lower number of points through yellow and red cards (yellow card 1 point, yellow-red and red card 3 points, yellow card followed by a direct red card 4 points)
Higher rank of the football association in the AFC four-year ranking
In addition to the nine group winners, the two best group thirds from the west and south-east regions also qualified for the final round. Since only three teams played in Group H, the results against the fourth group in the other two groups were not taken into account. In the event of a tie between two or all teams, the placement was determined by the following criteria:
Goal difference from all group matches
Number of goals in all group matches
Lower number of points through yellow and red cards (yellow card 1 point, yellow-red and red card 3 points, yellow card followed by a direct red card 4 points)
Higher rank of the football association in the AFC four-year ranking
yellow cards
Yellow and red cards
Red cards
Paro FC
Ahal FK
Bengaluru FC
Maziya S&RC
Taiwan Power Company FC
Sur SC
FK Khujand
PSM macassar
Yangon United
Master 7 FC
Kitchee SC
Al Jaish
Manama Club
al Ahed
al Kuwait SC
al-Faisaly
Hồ Chí Minh City FC
Hougang United
Ceres-Negros FC
Chao Pak Kei