2015 AFC Champions League knockout stage

The winners and runners-up of each of the eight groups in the group stage qualified for the knockout stage. Both West Zone and East Zone had eight teams qualified.

Zone	Group	Winners	Runners-up
West Zone (Groups A–D)	A	Lekhwiya	Persepolis
	B	Al-Ain	Naft Tehran
	C	Al-Hilal	Al-Sadd
	D	Al-Ahli	Al-Ahli
East Zone (Groups E–H)	E	Kashiwa Reysol	Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors
	F	Gamba Osaka	Seongnam FC
	G	Beijing Guoan	Suwon Samsung Bluewings
	H	Guangzhou Evergrande	FC Seoul

In the knockout stage, the 16 teams played a single-elimination tournament, with the teams split between the two zones until the final. Each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. The away goals rule, extra time (away goals do not apply in extra time) and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.[1]

The schedule of each round was as follows.[2]

In the round of 16, the winners of one group played the runners-up of another group in the same zone, with the group winners hosting the second leg.[1] The matchups are determined as follows:

The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 18 June 2015, 16:00 UTC+8, at the Grand Millennium Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[3] Teams from different zones could not be drawn into the same tie, and there was no seeding or country protection, so teams from the same association could be drawn into the same tie.[4]

In the semi-finals, the matchups were determined by the quarter-final draw: Winner QF1 vs. Winner QF2 (West Zone) and Winner QF3 vs. Winner QF4 (East Zone), with winners QF2 and QF4 hosting the second leg.[4]

In the final, the finalist from the West Zone hosted the first leg, while the finalist from the East Zone hosted the second leg (no draw was held to determine the order of legs, as it was reversed from the previous season's final).[4]

	Round of 16						Quarter-finals						Semi-finals						Final
	Persepolis	1	0	1
	Al-Hilal	0	3	3
							Al-Hilal	4	2	6
							Lekhwiya	1	2	3
	Al-Sadd	1	2	3
	Lekhwiya	2	2	4
													Al-Hilal	1	2	3
												Al-Ahli	1	3	4
	Naft Tehran (a)	1	1	2
	Al-Ahli	0	2	2
							Naft Tehran	0	1	1
							Al-Ahli	1	2	3
	Al-Ahli (a)	0	3	3
	Al-Ain	0	3	3
																		Al-Ahli	0	0	0
																			Guangzhou Evergrande	0	1	1
	Suwon Bluewings	2	2	4
	Kashiwa Reysol (a)	3	1	4
							Kashiwa Reysol	1	1	2
							Guangzhou Evergrande	3	1	4
	Seongnam FC	2	0	2
	Guangzhou Evergrande	1	2	3
													Guangzhou Evergrande	2	0	2
												Gamba Osaka	1	0	1
	Jeonbuk Motors	1	1	2
	Beijing Guoan	1	0	1
							Jeonbuk Motors	0	2	2
							Gamba Osaka	0	3	3
	FC Seoul	1	2	3
	Gamba Osaka	3	3	6

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Al-Ahli	0–1	Guangzhou Evergrande	0–0	0–1

7 November 2015

19:45 UTC+4

Al-Ahli	0–0	Guangzhou Evergrande
	Report

Al-Rashid Stadium, Dubai

Attendance: 9,480

Referee: Kim Jong-hyeok (South Korea)

21 November 2015

20:00 UTC+8

Guangzhou Evergrande	1–0	Al-Ahli
Elkeson  54'	Report

Tianhe Stadium, Guangzhou

Attendance: 42,499

Referee: Ravshan Irmatov (Uzbekistan)

Guangzhou Evergrande won 1–0 on aggregate.

• AFC Champions League, the-AFC.com