The Champions League group stage wrapped up final week with 16 of the event’s 32 groups bowing out of the competitors.
The remaining 16 — the highest two groups in every of the eight teams — will regroup in February to find out who will advance. Their path is easy: defeat one different group in a two-legged playoff to make the following spherical.
On Monday, UEFA — the governing physique of European soccer — drew tons to find out which groups would face one another on this knockout spherical. Each of the eight group winners was drawn towards one of many eight second-place finishers to create a set of intriguing video games for the Round of 16.
But whose draw was fortunate and whose was unlucky? And who would possibly break by to shock everybody and advance towards the percentages?
Winners
The Premier League did properly within the Round of 16 draw — welcome information for anybody anxious about two of its 4 representatives crashing out within the opening matches.
Arsenal will tackle FC Porto, which is third within the Liga Portugal behind Benfica and Sporting Lisbon. While Porto is not any pushover, the core of its squad is growing old, with 40-year-old Pepe main the protection and 31-year-old Mehdi Taremi main the entrance line.
If Arsenal can preserve Porto from scoring too many targets — it put 5 previous Ukrainian aspect Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday — it ought to win with out an excessive amount of issue.
Manchester City, in the meantime, acquired one of the best draw of the event: FC Copenhagen. The Danish aspect is taken into account the weakest group by far left within the Champions League and is not any match for the treble-winning Citizens. The solely destructive about this draw for City is that it should journey to the chilly Nordics in February for the away leg.
Skeptics who swear City all the time will get the best group of the lot is not going to be swayed by this draw.
Losers
Third in La Liga behind Real Madrid and upstart challengers Girona, Barcelona is having a tough season. Unfortunately, this Champions League draw will not make it any simpler.
The Blaugrana should journey to Italy to tackle Napoli — final season’s swashbuckling Italian champion. While Napoli has grown weaker since its large win final summer time, it is nonetheless a large offensive risk, with Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia linking as much as present goal-scoring firepower.
Napoli is without doubt one of the hardest groups Barcelona may’ve drawn.
Upset alert
Casual followers might take a look at PSG versus Real Sociedad and see nothing however a transparent PSG victory, however longtime Champions League viewers know the actual story. PSG has persistently underperformed within the knockout rounds since its big-money takeover final decade, and Spain’s Real Sociedad — a real left-field challenger who stormed La Liga final season — has all the products to harm PSG.
In the group stage, Sociedad completed first over robust groups Inter Milan and Benfica and did not lose a match.
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