AFC Champions League Elite League Stage fixtures confirmed

Central Coast Mariners’ 24/25 AFC Champions League Elite League Stage opponents have now been confirmed.

The Official League Stage Draw took place at the InterContinental Hotel in Kuala Lumpur on Friday evening, with the Mariners now knowing which teams we will play and where.

New format explained

For the 43rd edition of Asia’s premier competition, a new format is being rolled-out. Replacing the previous ‘Group Stage’ format of 4 teams, facing each other home and away, is the new ‘League Stage’ format, which will see two leagues, East and West, of 12 teams each.

Each team will play eight of the eleven other teams in their ‘league’, four at home and four away. The top eight teams from each zone will form the Round of 16, taking place in March. The Quarter-Final to Final Stages all take place in Saudi Arabia in April-May, which is when the Mariners could face the illustrious, star-studded Saudi Pro League clubs.

The clubs to watch out for at that stage, should the Mariners reach further new heights and get there; are Cristiano Ronaldo and co’s Al-Nassr, or Neymar’s Al-Hilal.

Al-Ain are the reigning AFC Champions League Champions, having beaten Yokohama F. Marinos 6-3 across the two-legged final in May, after also knocking out both Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal in the quarter and semi-finals, respectively.

Who are we playing?

Your Central Coast Mariners got drawn into position D2, which decided who we will be playing in our four home and four away games.

At home we will be taking on three time defending Thai Champions Buriram United, 10 time defending Malaysian Champions Johor Darul Ta’zim, Mariners legend John Hutchinson led Yokohama F. Marinos and Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua.

In our away matches we will be traveling twice to both Japan and China to take on some of Asia’s best teams. Kevin Muscat’s Shanghai Port will play host to us, who feature ex-Chelsea player Oscar, as well as Shandong Taishan. We will also be traveling to take on Japan’s Vissel Kobe and Kawasaki Fontale.

Full information on dates and kick-off times for each of these matches will be released by the AFC shortly.

How we qualified

Mark Jackson and the team booked our place in the inaugural edition of the newly-formed AFC Champions League Elite by winning the A-Leagues Premiers Plate, although our AFC Cup success would also have granted us entry to the qualifying round.

We will be entering Asia’s top-level competition for the sixth time in our history, with our previous record-run coming in 2013 when we reached the Round of 16.

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