It was a tense night that ended with Beijing Guoan writing a new chapter in their history as Bruno Genesio's side took their place in the last eight of the AFC Champions League for the first time.

Genesio could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about when the French tactician was fiercely criticized by press and pundits after a low-key Chinese Super League campaign. He has now overseen six victories since turning their attention to the Asia's showpiece tournament.

For FC Tokyo, it was a feeling of deja vu as the Japanese side were once again edged out by Chinese outfits at the first round of the knockout stage. Guangzhou Evergrande ruthlessly dashed Tokyo's hopes of making a breakthrough in 2012, while Shanghai SIPG broke their hearts four years later.

The game itself is an extreme cautious affair as both Guoan and Tokyo emphasized the importance of defense by spending a large amount of time camping inside their own halves and looking for chances to counter attack.

Not a single shot at goal was produced until later in the second half when Guoan's Brazilian-born Chinese striker A Lan, previously known as Alan Carvalho, took advantage of a sublime pass from Renato Augusto and broke the deadlock with a flawless finish.

A Lan then suffered an injury due to several collisions before being substituted by Zhang Yuning, but for Guoan, the job has done. And if not for Tokyo goalkeeper Go Hatano's brilliant saves at the latter stage of the encounter, the margin would be bigger.

"Today's game was very tight, the level shown by both teams was similar," Genesio said during the post-game press briefing. "But I think we deserved the victory because we dominated the game and got a lot of possession."

Elsewhere, South Korean giants Ulsan Hyundai also progressed into the quarter-finals for the first time in 8 years after a comfortable 3-0 win over Australian side Melbourne Victory. Bjorn Johnsen came off the bench to score two goals for the second game running, with Won Du-jae also on the scoresheet.

"I'd like to thank our players for their great performance tonight. We had a lot of chances but the players were patient in the first half," beamed coach Kim Do-hoon. "We should have scored more goals but if we keep showing our quality like we did tonight, we can win the competition."