Adelaide draws familiar foe Bunyodkor

If successful, the Reds would then face the winner of the quarter-final between Korea Republic's Ulsan Hyundai and Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal in the semi-finals.

The draw at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur also determined that the Reds would be the host team if they reached the one-off final in November.

Adelaide, which reached the final in 2008 after beating Bunyodkor 3-1 on aggregate in the semi-final, will play the first leg at Hindmarsh Stadium on 19 September and the return in Tashkent on 2 or 3 October.

Adelaide midfielder Dario Vidosic greeted the outcome of the draw with open arms.

”It would have been nice to face another team but it's a good draw because I think we have a psychological edge over them now,” Vidosic said.

”We beat them away and drew at home in the group phase and played well and I'm sure we'll do well against them again.

”Adelaide also knocked them out in 2008 so we know we can beat them and we have the confidence to do so because we now know what to expect.

”And that's a good thing going into the two games.”

Vidosic said he was unfazed by the prospect of playing the return leg away from home.

”Ideally we probably would have liked to play the second game at home but you still can set up the aggregate victory either way by doing the job at home and score a few.

”It's 180 minutes of football.

”We have a great incentive to get to the final because it would be played at Hindmarsh.

”We've got four games and if we can get through them we'll be fighting for the big one at home in a full house.”

Chairman Greg Griffin said his club would do everything in its power to give coach John Kosmina and the boys every opportunity to reach the final on home soil on 9 or 10 November.

”We're very pleased with the draw and I can assure you that we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to give the boys the best chance,” Griffin said.

”Bunyodkor are a terrific team and they will be coming off their season so they will be match hardened.

”They will be at an advantage so we will be calling our A-League brothers and asking them, 'boys, we need to play each other', because we need as much tough match practice as possible so we'll be ready for Bunyodkor when they come.

”We know what we have to do and what we would do.

”This is a glorious opportunity for Australian football.”

Kosmina's team reached this stage of the blue riband event of Asian club football by winning its group ahead of Bunyodkor and beating Japan's Nagoya Grampus 1-0 in the round of 16 in May.

Australia defender David Carney plays for Bunyodkor.

In the other half of the draw Saudi Arabia's Al Ittihad meets China's Guangzhou Evergrande and Sepahan of Iran takes on Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia.