SOURCE: (AP) — Real Madrid’s path to another Champions League title will have to go through Chelsea in the quarterfinals for the second straight year.
Friday’s draw takes Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti back to face his former club, which was eliminated by a goal from Karim Benzema in extra time a year ago.
This time, the first leg between the past two Champions League winners will be in Madrid instead of London — on April 11 or 12.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola also has a reunion with a former club. The English champions were drawn to face Bayern Munich, which has won all eight of its games in the competition this season and will play the first leg in Manchester.
Bayern twice kept Paris Saint-Germain forwards Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé from scoring in the round of 16. The team will now face the tournament’s leading scorer in Erling Haaland, who had five goals on Tuesday in City’s 7-0 rout of Leipzig.
“Our team has shown it can handle him,” Bayern director Michael Gerlinger said of Haaland, who was with Borussia Dortmund for the past two seasons. “There are players like Erling that you can never 100% neutralize so he is still very, very dangerous.”
The winner between City and Bayern will go on to play Madrid or Chelsea in the semifinals. That half of the draw includes four of the top-five teams in the UEFA rankings by results in European competitions over the past five years.
The other half of the draw is dominated by Italian clubs with the possibility of a Milan derby in the semifinals.
AC Milan will first face Napoli, the runaway Serie A leader which is making its debut in the quarterfinals of the Champions League or the old European Cup. The first leg is at San Siro.
Inter Milan will play at Benfica in the first leg, returning to the country where it eliminated Porto in the round of 16.
Inter is playing at this stage of the competition for the first time in 12 years, while Milan is ending an 11-year wait. Inter is ranked No. 12 by UEFA and seven-time European champion Milan is down at No. 36.
Six former champions who have combined for 34 titles in the 68-year history of the competition were in the draw. Only Napoli and Man City have yet to be European champions.
The first legs will be played on April 11 and 12. The return games are scheduled for April 18 and 19.
The semifinal matches will be played between May 9-17 and the final is set for June 10 at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul.
In the Europa League quarterfinals, Manchester United will play its fourth Spanish opponent in the competition.
After facing Real Sociedad in the group stage, Man United eliminated Barcelona and then Real Betis and will return to the same city to next face Sevilla — a record six-time champion of the competition.
The winner will face either Juventus or Sporting Lisbon in the semifinals.
The other half of the draw paired Feyenoord and Roma — a rematch of the inaugural Europa Conference League final last year won by the Italian team — and Bayer Leverkusen with Union Saint-Gilloise.
Belgian club Union is in its first season of European competition and is using Anderlecht’s stadium for home games as its own ground doesn’t meet UEFA standards.
The Europa League quarterfinals will be played on April 13 and 20, with the semifinals on May 11 and 18 and the final set for May 31 at the Puskas Arena in Budapest.
Anderlecht has its own home game on April 13 in the third-tier Europa Conference League quarterfinals, against AZ Alkmaar. Another Belgian club, Gent, hosts West Ham in the first leg.
Lech Poznan was paired with Fiorentina and Basel plays at home first against Nice.
Read our ePaper. Fast. Factual. Free.
Sign up and stay up to date with Barbados' FREE latest news.
Barbados Today firmly discourages any commentary or statements that are libelous, disruptive in nature or incites others to violate our Terms of Use. Any submissions made on our comment section, are solely the views of the individual and not Barbados Today.