After a 20-year hiatus, the ASEAN Club Championship has returned in 2024-25 and, after a riveting opening round, action continues on Wednesday and Thursday.
Here, we take a closer look at each of the six ties on the second match day.
Can BGPU gather momentum?
With a star-studded squad, BG Pathum United were always expected to be contenders on both the domestic front as well as in the ASEAN Club Championship.
An inconsistent start to their campaign, where they won just one of their opening four matches, was however far from ideal.
They have since steadied the ship with three wins in their past four outings, including a 2-1 win over fellow Thai League 1 title challengers Port at the weekend.
It will be interesting to see how they approach Tuesday's home game against Cambodia's Preah Khan Reach Svay Rieng, given they opted to use their opening ASEAN Club Championship tie to give a runout to their second stringers.
Should coach Makoto Teguramori decide to once again give some back-up players valuable match action, that would entirely be his prerogative.
Yet, considering how BGPU are now finding some consistency, maintaining some continuity in his team selection could be the savvier option.
PSM have perfect opportunity for first win
PSM Makassar might feel they should have come away with more than a point last month, especially given they were up against an understrength BGPU outfit who were nevertheless still no slouches.
On Wednesday, coming up against a Shan United team who -- with all due respect -- look to be among the tournament's weakest sides, nothing less than three points will suffice for the Liga 1 representatives.
Despite scoring the opening goal of the tournament just five minutes into their opener, Shan ultimately fell to a Dong A Thanh Hoa fightback.
There was a period about a decade ago where Myanmar actually emerged to challenge the powerhouses of Southeast Asian football, but they have since fallen away rather drastically.
Even though Shan are still littered with Myanmar internationals, PSM will be the huge favourites for this tie.
Terengganu desperately need to bounce back
Considering they were up against one of the two sides that had to reach the tournament via the qualifying playoffs, Terengganu would not have been expected to be on the receiving end of a 3-2 loss to Preah Khan Reach in the opening round.
Plenty of credit has to be given to the Cambodian team for rising to the occasion as they stunned Terengganu with two goals inside the opening 16 minutes, yet the Malaysia Super League outfit really should have produced a better performance.
Goalscorers Safawi Rasid and Manny Ott were the only Terengganu players who could walk off the pitch that evening with their heads held high, with the Turtles needing more from the likes of Akhyar Rashid, Nurillo Tukhtasinov and Ismahil Akinade.
Once again enjoying home advantage, Terengganu must rebound in another tie that they should be winning -- but again against a potential banana skin in Thanh Hoa.
Will Buriram be able to juggle multiple commitments?
As champions of the Thai League 1 in the past three seasons, Buriram United entered the ASEAN Club Championship as one of the hot favourites -- and they certainly were taking things seriously by fielding their strongest XI in the opening round.
It was not to be as they fell to a narrow 2-1 loss to Cong An Ha Noi and the fact that the AFC Champions League Elite has now begun further complicates matters for the Thunder Castle.
Buriram did extremely well to hold J1 League champions Vissel Kobe to a 0-0 draw in the ACL Elite last week and then cruised to a 6-0 win over PT Prachuap on the domestic front at the weekend -- a game in which they still effectively fielded their first team.
They do however have the coming weekend off given their enticing Thai League 1 clash with BGPU has been postponed to December on account of both teams having gruelling schedules ahead.
It does make things easier ahead of Thursday's ASEAN Club Championship meeting with Kaya FC-Iloilo, although it will still be interesting to see how Buriram juggle multiple commitments -- with domestic cup competitions to come as well.
Sailors face another tricky away test
The fact that the single-tie format for the six-team groups results in an odd number of fixtures always meant that some teams were going to play more matches away than at home.
Still, Lion City Sailors could be forgiven for wishing the draw had been kinder to them -- given they were handed trips to Borneo Samarinda and Cong An Ha Noi to open their ASEAN Club Championship campaign.
The Sailors were unlucky in their 3-0 loss to Borneo, having had two goals disallowed and an effort only denied by the woodwork while also playing the majority of the second half a man down following the needless dismissal of Rui Pires.
The Singapore Premier League's sole representatives are a match for anyone on their day, as they showed in the AFC Champions League Two a week ago when they stunned Zhejiang Professional with a 2-0 victory.
Nonetheless, two consecutive away trips against a couple of formidable opponents will be tough -- and the Sailors can ill afford to have no points to their names at the conclusion of the second match day.
KL City, Borneo to reignite fierce national rivalry
One of the biggest draws of the return of the ASEAN Club Championship was for the intense rivalries that define Southeast Asian football to be replicated at club level.
That much was apparent last month when the Thailand-Vietnam battle was reignited in the form of Buriram and Cong An Ha Noi locking horns.
On Thursday, what is perhaps the fiercest rivalry in the entire region will be renewed when Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur City entertain Indonesia's Borneo.
There is unlikely to be any love lost between the two teams and, to make matters more intriguing, both teams already have a win to their names and will be desperate to maintain their perfect record -- which would put either in a strong position to reach the semifinals at this early stage of the tournament.