AFC Women’s Champions League reaches quarter final stage

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Returning players from the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia will immediately find themselves in international competition again at the weekend in the quarter finals of the AFC Women’s Champions League (AWCL) 2025/26.

In only its second edition, the AWCL quarter finals will be played as single leg knockouts.

On Saturday March 28, Group C winners Tokyo Verdy Beleza, who clinched their maiden Japanese league title in 2024/25, will meet tournament newcomers Stallion Laguna FC of the Philippines at Stadium Tokyo. In 2019 Verdy Beleza won the AFC Women’s Club Championship.

Later in the day Ho Chi Minh City Women’s FC will host North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC, at the Lao National Stadium KM16 in Vientiane.

Naegohyang are the only North Korea women’s club to ever play in AFC competition. They won a second domestic league title in 2023/24 bur were runners-up in 2024/25.

Their Vietnamese opponents won a domestic double in 2024/25, and reached the semi-final finish of the Champions League last season.

On March 29, last year’s losing finalists (beaten on penalties) and current leaders of their domestic competition, Melbourne City FC, will meet PFC Nasaf, the first women’s club from Uzbekistan to ever qualify for the Knockout Stage. In Uzbekistan they won a record 17th league title in 2025 to extend an unbeaten streak that spans four seasons with 92 wins from 98 games.

Champions League title holders Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC, from China, meet South Korea’s Suwon FC at the Women Hankou Culture and Sports Center in Wuhan. The Koreans won their domestic league for a the second time in 2024.

Winners qualify for the semi-finals on May 20 before the Final on May 23.
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