The calendar-year format of the Asian Champions League means that many teams, including those of the Arabian Gulf League, who qualify for it at the end of one season will not start their qualifying campaigns until two-thirds into the next.
That is a further nine months on.
Many things can change in that time. Players gone, managers sacked, form deteriorated. Just look at the 2013/14 AGL champions Al Ahli, currently struggling in mid-table and unrecognisable from the team Cosmin Olaroiu led to the title last May.
For the two Emirati clubs who are taking part in tonight’s play-off round, things are somewhat different.
Al Jazira, last season’s third-placed team, are top of the AGL table and, domestically at least, look unstoppable as they prepare to take on Uzbekistan’s Bunyodkor in Tashkent.
The signing of Mirko Vucinic has been a masterstroke by coach Eric Gerets and club management. Next to him, UAE Asian Cup hero Ali Mabkhout has returned to the team as if he was never away, scoring three goals in three matches since claiming the top scorer award in Australia.
Form-wise, for Jazira, this match could not have arrived at a better time.
Recent history, too, seems to favour the Abu Dhabi club.
Their last Champions League encounter in Uzbekistan ended with 4-2 win against Nasaf Qarshi in the group stages of the 2012 competition.
Still, Gerets’s men cannot afford to approach this match with anything other than extreme caution.
A trip to Uzbekistan is never easy; Jazira’s players can expect something like real winter in the Uzbek capital, where the temperature at kickoff could be about 7 degrees.
Also, Bunyodkor, who qualified to last season’s round of 16, will provide far sterner opposition in this one-off tie than Nasaf did three years ago in the group opener.
There is no safety of a return leg. One bad performance against the 2008 semi-finalists and Jazira’s 2015 Asian Champions League campaign could be over 90 minutes after it began.
The UAE's other team in the play-off round, Al Wahda, have had less-than-ideal preparation for this match. They sit third in the AGL table, only four points behind Jazira and Al Ain, but management last week fired manager Jose Peserio, with caretaker coach Majed Salem in charge until Sami Al Jaber takes over for a mid-season challenge.
Last season’s AGL runners-up face a different kind of challenge tonight against Qatar’s Al Sadd, who needed an epic 11-10 penalty shootout win to defeat Bahrain’s Riffa and advance to the final round of qualifying.
Home advantage for Wahda is welcome, but they will be up against a formidable Al Sadd side. After a few years away from the Asian Champions League, the 2011 champions from Doha reached the quarter-finals of last season’s competition and now sit top of the Qatar Stars League.
Moroccan manager Hussein Amotta has built a fine squad that includes the brilliant Ibrahim Khalfan, Hasan Al Haidos and, newly signed from Ahli, the Brazilian striker Grafite.
On Friday, Al Sadd warmed up for their visit to the UAE capital with a 4-1 rout of Umm Salal, with Khalfan scoring twice.
The UAE may still be basking in the success of the national team during last month’s Asian Cup, but by tomorrow morning the country could find itself shorn of two of its four Asian Champions League representatives.
The UAE’s poor record at the competition since the introduction of the Pro League (later AGL) in 2007 provides little comfort.
Only in 2012 and 2014 has more than one Emirati club made it to the knockout stages. Further, Wahda’s march to the semi-finals in 2007 and Al Ain’s last year are the only instances of any of those teams progressing beyond the last 16.
Many of the UAE clubs’ failings have come at a time when domestic form would have suggested better fortunes.
Al Jazira and Wahda will be well aware of dangers that await them tonight.
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