2013 AFC Champions League
The 2013 AFC Champions League was the 32nd edition of the top-level Asian club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 11th under the current AFC Champions League title. The defending champions, Ulsan Hyundai, failed to qualify for the tournament. In the final, Chinese team Guangzhou Evergrande defeated South Korean team FC Seoul 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 and Third Final of Chinese  team after lost of Liaoning F.C. agenst Esteghlal F.C. 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: 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. 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 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Format changes. The following changes in the format of the competition were made compared with  the previous year: 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 and penalty shoot-out used to decide the winner if necessary. The winners of each tie advanced to the group stage to join the 29 automatic qualifiers. !|West Zone !|East Zone 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. The teams are ranked according to 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: Knockout stage. In the knock-out stage, the 16 teams played a single-elimination tournament. Each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. The away goals rule, extra time (away goals do not apply in extra time) and penalty  shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary. 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.