Ahal came into the match with the upperhand, having secured a 2-1 first leg victory a week ago, and the host began brightly in front of rousing home support at the Ashgabat Stadium.

The visitors fought back but couldn't breach the Ahal defence.

Colombo will face Indian side Chennaiyin FC in a two-legged South play-off round on March 6 and 13.

The winners of the tie will join India’s Minerva Punjab, Bangladesh’s Dhaka Abahani and Manang Marshyangdi Club of Nepal in Group E.

Despite the draw, however, the result extends Lao Toyota’s winless run in the AFC Cup to 10 matches, with their last win coming back in 2016.

For Kaya FC it was their first time in the AFC Cup since 2016 and they started the better of the two teams, forcing Outthilath Nammakhoth into a number of early saves in the Lao Toyota goal.

The Singaporean side made the final of the ASEAN Zone for the past two years, winning last year’s tie against Ceres Negros to advance to the Inter-zone semi-finals, and coming into this year’s campaign they once again have ambitions of going deep into the tournament.

It was the home side that started the brightest too, with Adam Swandi pouncing on an errant back pass to force a fine save out of Rivki Mokodompit.

After failing to navigate the competition’s play-off stage on two previous occasions, the Palestinian side qualified for this year’s group stage after overcoming Oman’s Al Nasr.

At Al Muharraq Stadium, youngster Odai Dabbagh was full of energy throughout. It took the Palestinian international five minutes to threaten. He calmly controlled Jonathan Zorrilla’s corner inside the box, dribbled past two defenders before seeing his shot deflected behind for another corner-kick.

The Jordanian side returned to the competition after missing out on the 2018 edition, their only absence in the past five years. Nejmeh, finalists in 2005, had exited at the group stage in each of their previous two appearances in 2015 and 2017.

A well-worked attacking move from a set-piece sent the home crowed into raptures as Al Wehdat took the lead just 11 minutes into the game.

Al Murjan was left with a simple tap in from point-blank range after Rajaei Ayed’s intelligently dinked pass found Hamza Al Dardour in plenty of space. The forward selflessly squared for Al Murjan who netted Al Wehdat’s opener.

Last year’s West Asia Zonal semi-finalists quickly moved into second gear as Yazan Al Arab got on the end of an Ahmed Al Essawi corner kick, but the defender fluffed his lines from close range 17 minutes in.

It was Al Jazeera’s second attempt of the night that produced the first goal. Islam Batran collected the ball deep into Al Najma’s half and laid it off for Mahmoud Al Mardi.

The Jordanian playmaker still had a lot to do, cutting inside into his right foot and unleashing a thunderous curler into the far corner of Ahmed Rasool’s net to break the deadlock 18 minutes in.