The AFC Cup is the second biggest tournament for clubs in Asia, and Sportmonks’ Football API covers all the data!
The AFC Cup began in 2004 as a second-tier competition to relate back to the AFC Champions League. 14 countries that had developing status competed in the first competition with 18 teams being nominated. Group A, B, and C had West and Central Asian teams while the other two groups had east and Southeast Asia. The winners and three runners-up would then head to the knock-out stage where it was a random draw in who was going to play. In 2005, 18 teams competed from nine nations with the nations still being allowed to choose from one or two teams entering.
After Syrian teams left the AFC Cup to try at the Champions League for four years, Al-Faisaly defeated Nejmeh in the final. With it, Jordanian teams would win the next two seasons with Bahrain joining the league while Bangladesh was relegated to the AFC President’s Cup until the tournament’s abolition in 2014. Al-Muharraq would break the trend in 2008 as they competed in the last two-legged final before it headed back into a one-leg system that still runs today. Today a total of 36 teams participate in the group stage.
Let’s take a look at the past AFC Cup winners. Keep in mind this data is from until the 2021 season.
Al-Jaish took the first AFC Cup after they defeated fellow Syrian opponents Al-Wahda on away goals. The finale was won most times by Al-Kuwait and Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, both winning the Cup three times. After these two Al-Faisaly and Al-Muharraq have won the final the most with 2 times. The rest of the clubs all have won the title just once. The latest club to win the final is Al-Muharraq by beating FC Nasaf 3-0 in the final.
Let’s take a look at the winners per country. Keep in mind this data is from until the 2021 season.
Kuwait has 4 title wins and have finished runners-up the most times with 3. Iraq and Jordan share second place with both winning the Cup three times. However, Iraq finished runners-up twice while Jordan finishing runners-up just once. Syria and Bahrain have won the final two times. With Syria being the runners-up twice and Bahrain just finishing second once. Three countries have won the title once. These countries are Lebanon, Uzbekistan and Malaysia. Other countries have never won the AFC Cup.
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If you cover one of the biggest Asian club tournaments, you will have to create a schedule page.
Schedule pages are very popular. Because these pages show when your favourite team is playing. This way people can be ready at the moment their team is playing.
If you want to create a schedule page you need to know how to implement the data in your application. You can find out how to do that with our data in our documentation.
Let’s look at the way you will receive our schedule data on the right.
"data":{ "position": 1, "season_id": 5838, "player_id": 94275, "team_id": 334, "stage_id": null, "goals": 15, "penalty_goals": 0, "type": "aggregated_goals", "player": { "data": { "player_id": 94275, "team_id": 334, "country_id": 1439, "position_id": 4, "common_name": "I. Jemâa", "display_name": "Issam Jemâa", "fullname": "Issam Jemâa", "firstname": "Issam", "lastname": "Jemâa", "nationality": "Tunisia", "birthdate": "28/01/1984", "birthcountry": "Tunisia", "birthplace": "Gabès", "height": "185 cm", "weight": "80 kg",
The all-time top scorer race in the AFC Cup is very close. Bienve Marańón is the all-time leading top scorer with 35 goals. Mahmoud Shelbaieh follows close behind with 34 goals. Aleksander Đurić and Amjad Radhi share third place with 32 goals. Bader Al-Mutawa and Rico share fourth place with 30 goals.
The most goals scored in a single season were by Rico who score 19 goals in the 2008 season. The second place is shared by Hammadi Ahmed and Issam Jemâa who scored 16 goals in the 2016 and 2013 seasons.
On the left you can see the way you will receive this data.