The 1999 World and European Player of the Year Rivaldo - full name Rivaldo Vítor Borba Ferreira - recently signed with the Uzbekistan club from Greek club AEK Athens, where former Adelaide United midfielder Nathan Burns currently plays.

Rivaldo has been joined by another Brazilian hero Zico who has taken over as Head Coach at Bunyodkor, and the duo will be planning to lead the Uzbekistan club past the Reds to the AFC Champions League Final.

The first of the two leg semi final will be held at Hindmarsh Stadium on Wednesday October 8 before the return leg in Taskent a fortnight later on October 22.

Adelaide United Coach Aurelio Vidmar and his team are excited by the opportunity to take their ACL campaign to yet another level.

While Vidmar does not know a lot about the Reds’ semi final opponents at this point of time, he is well aware of the calibre of players in their squad.

“They’ve got Rivaldo who is a renowned goal scorer and also a Chilean striker, Jose Luis Villanueva so they will be pretty handy,” Vidmar said.

Bunyodkor marched into the semi finals with a 7-3 aggregate win over Syrian club Saipa.

Having to endure another gruelling schedule balancing the AFC Champions League and domestic Hyundai A-League for another month, Adelaide United’s football department has already begun preparations for the away leg, even getting advice from the Socceroos coach.

“Pim Verbeek sent a message this morning and gave us a bit of information about Tashkent because they played there a couple of weeks ago,” Vidmar said.

“Pim said the pitch is fantastic, the training fields are fantastic, and the fans are very passionate so it’s going to be a massive game for us.”

With another important A-League match on Saturday against last season’s champions Newcastle Jets, Vidmar knows the squad does not have much time to reflect and celebrate last night’s win.

“They’ve got to refocus quickly, there’s no time to sit there and enjoy the victory,” Vidmar said.

“(We’re) straight back into it tomorrow. Unfortunately we would love to have another week to enjoy it for a little bit longer, but the way the A-League and the ACL is set up, you just haven’t got time to enjoy it.

"We’ve just got to bounce back and re-focus as quickly as possible.”