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2015 AFC Cup

2015 AFC Cup
Tournament details
Dates 9 February – 31 October 2015
Teams 41 (from 23 associations)
Final positions
Champions Malaysia Johor Darul Ta'zim (1st title)
Runners-up Tajikistan Istiklol
Tournament statistics
Matches played 122
Goals scored 339 (2.78 per match)
Attendance 496,305 (4,068 per match)
Top scorer(s) Australia Daniel McBreen
Republic of Macedonia Riste Naumov
(8 goals each)
Best player Malaysia Mohd Safiq Rahim
2014
2016

The 2015 AFC Cup was the 12th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Johor Darul Ta'zim won the tournament after defeating Istiklol in the final.

Al-Qadsia were the defending champions, but they were eliminated in the semi-finals after the Kuwait Football Association was suspended by FIFA.

The AFC Competitions Committee proposed a revamp of the AFC club competitions on 25 January 2014, which was ratified by the AFC Executive Committee on 16 April 2014. The member associations are ranked based on their national team's and clubs' performance over the last four years in AFC competitions, with the allocation of slots for the 2015 and 2016 editions of the AFC club competitions determined by the 2014 rankings:

The AFC Competitions Committee decided on the participation of member associations in the 2015 and 2016 editions of the AFC Cup on 28 November 2014.

The following 41 teams from 23 associations entered the competition.

Teams in italics played in the 2015 AFC Champions League qualifying play-off, but failed to advance to the AFC Champions League group stage (had they advanced to the AFC Champions League group stage, they would have been replaced by another team from the same association).

The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

The bracket for the qualifying play-off, which consisted of two rounds (preliminary round and play-off round), was determined by the AFC based on the association ranking of each team. Each tie was played as a single match, with the team from the higher-ranked association hosting the match. Extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary. The winners of each tie in the play-off round advanced to the group stage to join the 27 automatic qualifiers.


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