Exactly a week ago, BG Tampines Rovers looked dead and buried in the AFC Champions League Two after suffering a heavy 4-0 loss to Công An Hà Nội in the first leg of their round of 16 clash.
But then, a twist in the tale emerged.
As first reported by ESPN on Sunday morning, CAHN had fielded two players in that tie who should have been serving a one-match suspension each -- Australian midfielder Stefan Mauk and Brazilian striker China.
On Tuesday, the transgressions were confirmed by the Asian Football Confederation and that result was overturned to a 3-0 win to Tampines. All of a sudden, the Stags were now in the driving seat.
And, yet, there was every chance the Vietnamese visitors were still a legitimate chance to overturn the deficit. After all, they had put ten goals past Tampines in their two recent outings, including an earlier 6-1 rout in the ASEAN Club Championship.
Nonetheless, rising to the occasions as they did numerous times on the continental scene back in the group stage, Tampines would make the most of their reprieve -- recording a 3-1 win over CAHN in the second leg and Jalan Besar Stadium to book their place in the quarterfinals with a 6-1 aggregate victory.
Prior to the return encounter, CAHN coach Alexandré Pölking -- after acknowledging that his team only had themselves to blame for the administrative gaffe that led to the first-leg result being overturned -- had vowed that they would not be going down without a fight.
While CAHN did not let him down with their endeavour from the opening whistle, Tampines were also offering far more resistance than in their previous two meetings.
Any hopes of CAHN pulling off a remarkable fightback took a significant hit in the 36th minute when the ever-deadly Hide Higashikawa opened the scoring for the hosts with a fine diving header from a Shah Shahiran left-wing cross.
The task at hand got even tougher for CAHN when they were reduced to ten men ten minutes after halftime, when Léo Artur's on-field yellow card was upgraded to a straight red upon VAR review for an elbow to the face of Yuki Kobayashi.
Remarkably, just a minute later, the visitors thought they had equalised when Nguyễn Đình Bắc was released on the right by Nguyễn Quang Hải and, while his initial attempted cross would be blocked, the rebound fell back into his path and he would make no mistake in squeezing a shot in at the near post -- only for VAR to once again intervene against their favour.
Right on the hour mark, the tie was effectively settled when Higashikawa struck again.
Despite there being no apparent danger when he received possession from Takeshi Yoshimoto on the edge of the box, Higashikawa displayed classic centre-forward play as he fended off Đoàn Văn Hậu's attempted challenge with sheer brute strength before powering an effort past the despairing dive of Nguyễn Filip.
CAHN finally got on the right side of VAR in the 76th minute when they were awarded penalty after review for an infringement inside the area by Jacob Mahler on Alan Grafite, paving the way for the Brazilian to score his first goal of the tournament from the spot.
Still, the evening was always going to belong to the Stags.
They duly restored their two-goal cushion in the 79th minute through a Trent Buhagiar effort and, although another goal from the Malta international three minutes later was ruled out for offside, it did little to dampen the spirits of a Tampines outfit who -- with the help of an opposition error -- succeded in coming back from the dead to march on into the quarterfinals of the ACL Two.