Chiangrai qualified for the Continental competition for the first time in their history after winning the 2019 Thai League 1 but suffered back-to-back 1-0 losses against Melbourne Victory and Beijing FC in February before the East Asia section of the tournament was brought to an eight-month halt by COVID-19.

While a long-term injury ruled the attacking midfielder out of the opening two games, the 21-year believes Chiangrai learnt plenty of lessons in defeat and will now look to put in an improved performance in Qatar, starting with the match against Seoul at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium.

Goals from Fernando and A Lan helped Beijing secure an important 2-1 win over Korea Republic’s FC Seoul on Saturday, taking their tally to the maximum six points from two matches in the competition.

With their next two matches against a Melbourne Victory side which hasn’t played competitively since August, the team from the Chinese capital can already see a potential path to the knockout stage.

Appearing for the second time in Group F, and the first time in the competition’s new centralised format, the Korea Republic side were far too strong for their Chinese opponents, with Yoon Bit-garam scoring twice to take the sting out of the contest before half-time.

While Shanghai had already played and won against Perth Glory in Doha on Wednesday, Ulsan’s impressive showing came in their first fixture in Qatar, and Kim had only minor criticisms of what had been an excellent resumption of his team’s Asian campaign.

The two tacticians are long-time friends, having both worked at FC Porto around the turn of the century.

They have since both gone on to win league titles in Asia, with Perreira guiding Shanghai SIPG to their first-ever Chinese Super League title and Morais lifting back-to-back K League 1 titles with Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.

The two time AFC Champions League winners have not played any of their games in the group yet with the COVID-19 outbreak postponing their fixtures from February onwards, but the condensed schedule seems a little easier now with Malaysian side Johor Darul Ta’zim having withdrawn earlier.

Having not seen any competitive action since winning the A-League Grand Final at the end of August, the New South Wales side got off to the perfect start when Trent Buhagiar opened the scoring inside 10 minutes as they went into the interval a goal to the good.

But Shanghai fought back in the second half as a Li Shenglong brace ultimately secured the Chinese Super League side a 2-1 win, with Grant also having to play in goal for the final few minutes after Thomas Heward-Belle was dismissed for handling outside the box.