In the East, defending champions Kashima Antlers are tasked with fellow J.League team Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Chinese duo Guangzhou Evergrande and Shandong Luneng will also lock horns.

On the other side of the Continent, meanwhile, Qatari powerhouses Al Sadd and Al Duhail face off, while there is also an intriguing Riyadh–Jeddah clash between rivals Al Hilal and Al Ahli. Both matches, however, will not take place until August.

Ahead of the ties, the-AFC.com looks back on five other times the last 16 has pitted clubs from the same domestic league against one another.

It has been a remarkable rise for a club that only arrived in China’s top flight in 2013 and have since gone on to to acquire talent of the calibre of Hulk and Oscar, the Brazilian duo who helped inspire them to their maiden Chinese Super League title in 2018 after three successive top-three finishes.

Arguably, however, no one has been more important in their surge to prominence than Wu Lei, who was the league’s top scorer last year before he signed for La Liga side Espanyol at the beginning of 2019 where he has since gone on to become the first player from his country to score in Spain’s top flight.

On the back of defending their Iran Pro League title, the Tehran-based club achieved a domestic double by also claiming the Hazfi Cup.

The last time Persepolis had achieved such a feat was in 1999.

The Continental competition will not return until mid-June but there remain plenty of talking points, not least the-AFC.com’s look back at the facts and figures that have caught the eye so far.

FIFA World Cup winner Xavi, who played his last competitive match in a 2019 AFC Champions League tie against Islamic Republic of Iran's Persepolis on May 20, had announced his retirement on May 2.

The two-time AFC champions League winners said Tsuyoshi Otsuki will assume the role of head coach, having been an assistant to Brazilian Oliveira.