When Almoez Ali headed home in the 15th minute, thoughts of Al Duhail’s resounding win over Al Ain in the previous round were not too far away. However, the Iranian giants dug deep to leave the tie firmly in the balance ahead of the second leg in Tehran in two weeks’ time.

Proving that practice does indeed make perfect, Leo Silva's strike on the hour set J.League side Kashima on their way to a 2-0 first leg advantage in their last eight tie against visiting Chinese Super League side Tianjin Quanjian.

The rare goal for the defensive midfielder was very much one that was made on the training field.

The result meant that the Qatari champions matched Ulsan Hyundai's record of nine consecutive wins in the AFC Champions League.

Al Duhail nearly seized the initiative early on with front man Youssef El Arabi narrowly failing to connect with Nam Tae-hee's header across the goalmouth in the fourth minute.

In the 15th minute, the home side broke the deadlock through young striker Ali. Summer signing Edmilson sent in a teasing cross from the left and the unmarked Ali headed in with aplomb to get his second goal of the tournament.

Persepolis then came close to equalising in the 23rd minute, but Omid Alishah's effort flew just wide of Amine Lecomte's goal.

The Algerian bagged a brace to help the 2011 AFC Champions League winners come from behind to defeat Esteghlal 3-1 at Azadi Stadium.

Young goalkeeper Meshaal Aissa failed to control a backpass, allowing the ball to go under him and into the back of the net to gift Esteghlal the opener.

Losing 2-0 at Kashima Soccer Stadium was far from an ideal result for Chinese Super League side Tianjin Quanjian, especially after they had held the game goalless for an hour before Leo Silva, and then Serginho, struck for the hosts.

Nevertheless, former AC Milan star Alexandre Pato believes that the result is still not a foregone conclusion with the return meeting in China still to come in three weeks' time.

The 2011 champions began the game brightly but were dealt a blow in the 12th minute, conceding after an unfortunate mistake.

A high ball into the Al Sadd box was headed down by Boualem Khoukhi for his keeper Meshaal Aissa to pick up, but the young custodian inadvertently let it slip past him to gift the hosts an opener.

Esteghlal maintained their lead right up to halftime, after surviving a scare in injury time when Akram Afif's shot rebounded off the post to be gathered by Esteghlal keeper Mehdi Rahmati.

For the first time since the introduction of the East v West final in 2013, all four teams in the West Asian quarter-finals come from just two countries, offering us the opportunity to watch two tasty IR Iran v Qatar encounters, as Tehran giants Estaghlal and Persepolis face Al Sadd and Al Duhail respectively.

Throughout the years, teams from the two nations have produced some classics when they met. Here are four memorable matches between them from recent editions of the competition.