While many thought victory to the Western Sydney Wanderers in 2014 would accelerate national interest in the competition, promoting the tournament to Australian fans remains a particularly tough sell in comparison with the A-League.

Sydney FC began their home ACL campaign against Guangzhou Evergrande with a crowd of 18,149 – but almost half came in support of the visiting team. The next match, against Korean side Pohang Steelers, saw only 5642 attend and despite Urawa Reds' reputation as an Asian superpower, just 8802 turned up.

Shandong Luneng have a smaller footprint in Australia and while they are expected to bring some support to Allianz Stadium, it won't be enough to swell a crowd that Pignata feels won't match the significance of the occasion.

"To be honest, I still don't think people in Australia really understand the magnitude of the Asian Champions League and just how hard it is to get this far," he said. "We've been doing it now for 10 or so years and we need to understand what a truly massive competition it is that we're a part of.

"For the first time our two biggest A-League teams are in hunt for the last eight, and, given what we managed to do against Shandong last week, it would be great to see that translate into public support."

The Sky Blues need only a win or scoreless draw to qualify for the quarter-finals for the first time after drawing the first leg 1-1 in Jinan, a result set up by David Carney's first-half header.

Pignata said he'd noticed "plenty of talk" about the team's progress in the continental tournament but said such interest had failed to materialise in ticket sales.

"To be honest, ticket sales have only been OK. We're expecting about 10,000 as it stands and I can't stress the importance to all of our members, fans and the wider sporting community just how significant this match is," he said "This is a massive game for the club and to finish the season by qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Asian Champions League would be enormous. We need the people of Sydney to get behind this one.

"When you travel around and see how people in other countries have grasped the size of the tournament, it would be fantastic to see our sports fans here do the same here."

The Sky Blues arguably lost some of their gloss recently with an underwhelming finish to the A-League season, fading out of the title contention and then missing the finals series altogether.

"There's no hiding how disappointed we are with what happened in the A-League but success in Asia has definitely eased some of the pain," Pignata said.

"We came into a group that many people regarded as the 'group of death' and as one of the most difficult Asian football had ever seen – and we finished on top. We're proud of that, but now we've come this far, we want to go further."