The ASEAN Club Championship returns in October with a wider group stage

The ASEAN Club Championship comes back next month, and the competition Malaysian clubs enter this season is a wider one than the last.

A bigger group stage

The tournament’s own announcement sets the shape of it. The group stage grows from 12 to 14 teams, the top four in each seven-team group advance, and a quarter-final round has been added between the groups and the knockout phase.

The season starts on 7 October, and the knockout rounds do not begin until next May, with the final played over two legs on 17 and 30 June.

That is a long competition to carry, and it sits on top of a domestic calendar that is already crowded.

The Malaysian interest

Johor Darul Ta’zim are listed among the clubs in the 2026/27 edition.

For a club used to a short continental campaign, four qualifiers out of a seven-team group is a different arithmetic. It rewards a steady run rather than one good night, and it adds a knockout round before the ones that used to decide the thing.

The player the region watched in August

The competition’s own preview leads on Nguyễn Đình Bắc, the Vietnam forward who took the most valuable player award at the ASEAN Championship in August, when Vietnam defended their title against Thailand in the final.

He said matches of that standard let his club side face strong teams from Southeast Asia and Asia. “These are very good and valuable matches for us”, he said.

Malaysian readers remember that tournament for a different reason. Vietnam put Harimau Malaya out in the semi-finals, winning 2-0 at Kuala Lumpur Stadium, Cheras and 2-0 again at My Dinh National Stadium, Hanoi.

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