{"id":12158,"date":"2011-05-12T18:22:26","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/12\/acl-juicy-encounters-in-offing\/"},"modified":"2011-05-12T18:22:26","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:22:26","slug":"acl-juicy-encounters-in-offing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2011\/05\/12\/acl-juicy-encounters-in-offing\/","title":{"rendered":"ACL: Juicy encounters in offing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"http:\/\/melbourne.theoffside.com\/files\/2010\/12\/16a43740dc945c06c106b3d9df644b83.jpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/melbourne.theoffside.com\/files\/2010\/12\/16a43740dc945c06c106b3d9df644b83.jpeg\" height=\"204\" width=\"258\" \/>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, <strong>Two former champions will battle it out with their  domestic counterparts in the AFC Champions League Round of 16 this  month. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two-time winners Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al Ittihad, who topped Group C,  will host arch-rivals and Saudi League champions Al Hilal in the one-off  tie on May 24 while 2008 champions Japan\u2019s Gamba Osaka will meet Cerezo  Osaka on the same day.<\/p>\n<p>Gamba, who defeated their city rivals 2-1  in J-League in March this year, will be aiming for another shot at the  continental glory.<\/p>\n<p>All the four teams from Saudi Arabia \u2013 Al  Ittihad, Al Hilal, Al Shabab and Al Nassr \u2013 and Japan \u2013 Gamba Osaka,  Cerezo Osaka, Kashima Antlers and Nagoya Grampus &#8211; have made it to the  second stage of the competition.<\/p>\n<p>Korea will have three teams \u2013 FC  Seoul, Suwon Bluewings and former winners Jeonbuk Motors \u2013 in the Round  of 16 with the exception of Jeju United while Iran will be represented  by Sepahan and Zob Ahan. China, Uzbekistan and Qatar will have one team  each.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sepahan will host Bunyodkor with an aim to avenge their  defeats at the hands of the Uzbek champions in the group stages of 2008  and 2009 editions of the tournament.<br \/><\/strong><br \/>2006 champions Jeonbuk Motors will host China\u2019s Tianjin Teda on May 24.<\/p>\n<p>Two  Korea-Japan clashes will be the highlight the next day when FC Seoul  play hosts to Kashima Antlers and Suwon Bluewings meet Nagoya Grampus.  In other matches of the day, Qatar\u2019s Al Sadd will host Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al  Shabab <strong>while Zob Ahan will face Al Nassr.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>THE SCHEDULE<\/p>\n<p>May 24<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Sepahan (Iran) vs Bunyodkor (Uzbekistan)<\/span><br \/>Al Ittihad (Saudi Arabia) vs Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)<br \/>Gamba Osaka (Japan) vs Cerezo Osaka (Japan)<br \/>Jeonbuk Motors (Korea Republic) vs Tianjin Teda (China)<\/p>\n<p><strong>May 25<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Al Sadd (Qatar) vs Al Shabab (Saudi Arabia)<br \/><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Zob Ahan (Iran) vs Al Nassr (Saudi Arabia)<\/span><br \/>FC Seoul (Korea Republic) vs Kashima Antlers (Japan)<br \/>Suwon Bluewings (Korea Republic) vs Nagoya Grampus (Japan)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; KUALA LUMPUR, Two former champions will battle it out with their domestic counterparts&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":3299,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}