Elsewhere, Hantharwady United remained perfect in Myanmar and things look increasingly good for Sydney FC in Australia despite the league leaders not playing over the weekend.

Having sat out last week's fixtures, Korea Republic duo FC Seoul and Suwon Samsung Bluewings, Australian pair Perth Glory and Sydney FC and China PR's Beijing FC all make their first starts in this year's competition.

The Becamex Binh Duong forward failed to find the back of the net in Vietnam's goalless draw against Thailand in the opener, but he showed a glimpse of his genius when he was on target in their 3-1 victory in Indonesia.

Then came his finest moment of the qualifying campaign thus far: he scored the lone goal against United Arab Emirates with the victory moving Vietnam to the top of Group G of the Asian Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023, a group many anticipated to be tricky and too tough to call.

As 2018-19 A-League Premiers, the Western Australia club qualified for the competition for the first time and, after last week’s match against Shanghai Shenhua was postponed, they will make their tournament bow away at Tokyo Stadium.

For their veteran skipper Castro, who has been at Perth since 2015, the chance to test their wits against the best in Asia marks the realisation of a dream for a player who made well over 200 La Liga appearances for Sporting Gijon and Getafe in his native Spain.

In the Indian Super League, Chennaiyin FC boosted their hopes of a place in the play-offs with a 3-1 win over ATK while Mohun Bagan are eight points clear at the top of the I-League.

The Bangladesh Premier league kicked off over the weekend, with defending champions Bashundhara Kings off to a winning start. Join the-AFC.com as we take a look at the domestic action over the past week.

Than Quang Ninh were reduced to 10 men early on at Bali’s Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium but the hosts fell behind to Jamaican Jeremie Lynch’s goal and went into the interval trailing despite their man advantage.

But the Indonesian champions came out firing after the restart with Rahmat Syamsuddin equalising almost immediately, before Platje netted a fine volley and a superb curling effort into the top corner either side of an Ilija Spasojevic penalty to complete a resounding win.