The current champions, Manchester City, were paired with Copenhagen for a relatively easy match in the last-16 of the Champions League. In another draw on Monday afternoon, Arsenal will play against a familiar team, Porto from Portugal, while Barcelona will face Napoli in what is considered the most exciting tie of the round.
Copenhagen is set to travel again for the second leg, after successfully progressing from the same group where Manchester United failed to advance in their European campaign. Their esteemed coach, Jacob Neestrup, orchestrated a 4-3 victory over United in November. In the previous season, they also faced City in the group stage and lost 5-0 in Manchester, but managed to hold Pep Guardiola’s team to a scoreless draw in Denmark.
The top team in the Premier League, Arsenal, will be facing two-time champions Porto in the first knockout round of the competition. The last time Arsenal reached this stage was in the 2016-17 season. Porto, led by long-standing manager Sérgio Conceição, placed second in Group H behind Barcelona. These two teams previously faced each other in the same stage of the competition in 2010, with Arsène Wenger’s team overcoming a 2-1 deficit in the first leg to win the second leg 5-0, thanks to three goals from Nicklas Bendtner.
City and Arsenal, as the victors of their respective groups, will have their first match as the visiting team. These initial games will occur in February, followed by the second leg in March. Atlético Madrid will face off against Internazionale, who were last year’s runners-up. Real Madrid, who have won 14 times, will compete against RB Leipzig.
Paris Saint-Germain, who made it through the group that Newcastle failed to qualify from, will be playing against Real Sociedad, adding to the Spanish teams in the competition. The other German teams, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, were matched with Lazio and PSV Eindhoven.
The Europa League knockout playoff round draw took place in Nyon, including eight group runners-up and eight teams from the Champions League. Brighton, Liverpool, West Ham, and Rangers did not participate as they all finished at the top of their groups and moved on to the last 16.
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Galatasaray, who edged out Manchester United to take third in their Champions League group, will face Sparta Prague, with Milan, who finished above Newcastle, facing Rennes. Other notable ties were Feyenoord v Roma, along with Shakhtar Donetsk v Marseille. Similarly, Aston Villa were not involved in the Europa Conference League knockout draw, having won their group.
Source: theguardian.com
