A new order takes shape: What ACL Elite Matchday Two told us

The second round of AFC Champions League Elite action concluded this week, largely as expected, with the continent’s leading sides beginning to establish themselves at the top of the league standings. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the East, where Japanese dominance continues to shape the early narrative.

All five J1 representatives secured maximum points in midweek, with four now boasting six points from six. Yet widespread rotation and reduced attendances have tempered any hopes of an immediate impact off the back of an expanded competition and relaxed foreign-player quotas that the AFC may have hoped for, as the tournament continues to tentatively find its footing in another altered vision of the Champions League.

The West, meanwhile, has offered rather more intrigue; while favourites Al Hilal look rejuvenated by their revamped attacking line-up, Al Sadd and Al-Ittihad continued to make uncharacteristically sluggish starts. Their early stumbles have opened the door for the likes of Al Ain and Shabab Al Ahli to establish themselves at the summit alongside Al Hilal and Esteghlal, while Uzbek Super League sides Pakhtakor and Neftchi have drawn in neutral observers, following stubborn, but effective starts of their own.

It remains early days, but the initial trends are beginning to emerge. With the second round complete, we look back at the week’s standout performers, the teams making an early impression and the wider talking points shaping this season’s ACL Elite.

The Player

Ollie Watkins’ start to life in Saudi Arabia was initially a mixed one. His quality as a world-class striker was never in doubt, but finding the right fit in Al Hilal’s unique attack was always going to be the bigger challenge. While his first couple of matches saw Watkins struggle to balance being the central target man and the more naturally mobile striker he naturally is, the last few weeks have offered a more convincing indication of what the England international can bring to his new club.

Against Al Sadd, once viewed as Al Hilal’s primary challengers in the West, Watkins delivered perhaps his most complete performance in the Blue Wave uniform to date. For the opener, he combined his instincts of an out-and-out poacher with the improvisation of a forward in full flow, scooping the ball into the net despite being knocked to the floor. For Hilal’s second, it was his pace and movement out wide that created the opportunity, forcing an early second half penalty which provided comfortable distance between them and their Qatari hosts.

It was a reminder of the varied qualities that made Watkins such an attractive proposition in the first place. His ability to stretch defences, run into space and contribute beyond the penalty area offers Al Hilal a different dimension in attack, one that had arguably been missing from their forward line for the last few years.

Karim Benzema was the last golden goose to be tested, a proven goalscorer whose arrival carried the promise of another continental push. Yet his holistic game, at this stage of his career, offered less of the mobility and movement that Al Hilal needed. Watkins provides that broader attacking contribution, while retaining the one critical quality that matters most to a side with ambitions of winning every trophy they compete in this season: goals.

Al Hilal have now made it two wins from two in the Champions League, and are already looking the part as tournament favourites. Any early doubts surrounding Watkins’ acquisition may yet prove a brief footnote, provided the last few weeks are a sign of things to come.

The Team

After two rounds, Beijing Guoan are somewhat surprisingly emerging as the only real side disrupting the Japanese dominance at the top of the East region, sitting alongside four J. League clubs in the early standings.

That said, their latest result was hardly a footballing spectacle. At the Thunder Castle, against a strong, and in-form Buriram United, Beijing produced one of the more agricultural performances of the round, spending long spells on the back foot, and having to rely on the enigmatic keeping of Hou Sen, doing just enough to grind out a result in what has become one of East Asia’s toughest away assignments in recent years.

There is something significant in their presence here. Beijing are back in the top tier of Asian club football for the first time since 2021, while Buriram have become a regular fixture in the newly assembled Champions League finals series. That the Chinese side entered the campaign and this match in particular as outsiders, with little expectation of challenging, says plenty about how the balance of power has shifted in recent years.

While Chinese football is slowly making inroads towards a more promising future, the financial superpower of the Chinese Super League remains a distant memory. No Chinese club has yet reached the end-of-season finals in the new ACL Elite format, while the likes of Buriram have established themselves as regular contenders. Alongside Shanghai Port, Beijing are now looking to alter the trajectory of that narrative this season.

With Chengdu expected to seal their domestic challenge for the Chinese Super League title in the next couple of weeks, Beijing’s immediate priority will be to secure qualification for next season’s ACL Elite. Retaining the domestic cup next month would offer one route, although there is the small matter of continental progress to negotiate first.

Nick Montgomery has rotated his squad across the opening fixtures with domestic priorities in mind, using the competition instead to assess new summer arrivals, such as Jeremy Dudziak and Chadrac Akolo. Yet it was the dependable finishing of substitute Fábio Abreu that ultimately proved decisive, underlining the value of having a forward capable of making the difference when opportunities are limited.

It’s not the most fashionable way to compete, particularly with an ageing squad still searching for a consistent identity at this level, but Beijing have shown enough grit and potency in front of goal in these early weeks to suggest they can make their mark under Montgomery.

It must be said, the fixture draw has also been very kind, with Beijing avoiding all five Japanese clubs during the league phase, presenting a genuine opportunity to push for a place in the finals and end China’s wait for a club to return to the final stages of Asia’s premier competition.

For now, pragmatism will suffice. Beijing have a platform, and in a competition where expectations have rarely been lower for Chinese football, that alone is something worth tracking over the coming months.

The Talking Point

A week ago, the United Arab Emirates were celebrating their run to the Gulf Cup final for the first time in nearly a decade, an encouraging development under new coach Zlatko Dalic with the Asian Cup approaching. The improvement has directly coincided with a renewed focus on nationalisation, with 16 members of the squad having been born overseas.

Back in club football, the early rounds of the AFC Champions League Elite have offered another illustration of the Emirates’ changing approach to homegrown talent. Following the AFC’s relaxation of foreign-player restrictions in Asian competition this year, Al Ain and Shabab Al Ahli are among the four sides to have won both of their opening fixtures in the West. The number of Emirati-born starters between them, however, remains remarkably low.

By the most immediate measure, Emirati football is enjoying a welcome upturn at both club and international level. After the decline of the golden generation of Omar Abdulrahman, Ahmed Khalil and Ali Mabkhout, the standard and influence of homegrown players has come under increasing scrutiny. The response has seen a greater use of nationalised players by the national team, alongside an increasingly expansive foreign recruitment strategy at club level.

Shabab Al Ahli offered the clearest illustration of this in their impressive victory over Al Ittihad, with all 16 of the players who saw action on the pitch, being foreign-born, with only, Guilherme Bala, featuring as a home player, having been naturalised this summer. With the financial backing to attract established talent, both they and Al Ain already look best placed to challenge the Saudi heavyweights for the leading positions in the West.

There are benefits to this approach, even through an Asian lens. The prominence of Iranian players such as Saeid Ezatolahi and Sardar Azmoun, whose brace against Al Ittihad recalled his performances against Bayern Munich over a decade ago, continues to help foreground the best talent Asia has to offer. Mehdi Taremi’s return to the Emirates with Al Wasl provides another familiar name, while the increased depth of these squads should make the regional contest more competitive. For Emirati football specifically, their willingness to invest so single-mindedly in established international players has clearly helped its clubs become more credible continental challengers.

However, the longer-term implications for local football are harder to reconcile. Immediate success brings validation, but it can also obscure the question of how sustainable the model will prove to be. Nationalisation may provide a short-term boost to the national team, yet the age profile of some of these players raises questions about how much benefit the UAE will ultimately derive. If club football increasingly becomes a contest between imported talent and a handful of established nationalised names, the connection between the success of individual clubs and the development of the national team risks becoming more tenuous.

There is also a wider question of sustainability and engagement that stretches outside the Emirates. Since the relaxation of the ACL’s foreign-player rules, the clubs that might have been expected to benefit most from the changes have not always been the teams we’d expect. Saudi club sides early-campaign struggles have, ironically, provided more opportunities for homegrown players, whilst elsewhere, the likes of Johor Darul Ta’zim, Buriram United and Kyoto Sanga have increasingly tested the limits of what the expanded quotas allow, and seen relative improvements for it.

The argument for loosening restrictions was simple in isolation; better players should raise standards, improve the quality of competition and give Asian clubs a stronger platform to compete internationally. Yet there is a difference between attracting talent that raises the level of a squad and building a model that leaves domestic players with fewer opportunities to develop.

Across much of Asia, the AFC continues to wrestle with the same contradiction: how to showcase the continent’s strongest clubs whilst ensuring that the game remains sustainable, accessible and capable of developing its own talent – an ongoing discussion presented by the new proposals for an AFC Nations League. For now though, the Emirates are enjoying the benefits of their approach. The real test will be whether they can turn that success into something that can continue.