The UEFA Champions League draw came out on Monday and the set gave some teams tougher roads than others in the knockout round for the last 16 and the first leg matches will start on February 18 with games coming later in the month before the second leg matches begin in March and the stage is set for teams like Manchester United, Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich as well as Schalke and Manchester City.
The draw has some very tough matches for some of the group winners, including Barcelona and Bayern Munich, who will have to match up with Manchester City and Arsenal. The Gunners are leading the Premier League and they also played Bayern last year and Barcelona hopes to have back Lionel Messi by the time the matches pick up in February. The first leg matches will be in February on the 18th and 19th as well as the 25th and 26th, while the second legs will have the runners up visiting the group champions with matches coming March 11th and 12th as well as 18th and 19th. The group winners for the first stage included Barcelona, Manchester United, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain as well as Chelsea and some of the tough runners up include Olympiakos as well as Galatasaray.
Real Madrid is coming in as nine time champions and they will visit Schalke to start things off before heading to the home match and AC Milan will have a tough go of it when they face against Atletico Madrid. Paris St Germain play against the Group A runners up in Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester United should be able to get through with their match against Olympiakos and Borussia Dortmund could have an interesting go of things as well. Manchester City has been playing well over the past month and they could be a team to watch when the knockout stage picks up in February.
Álvaro Negredo, David Silva and Jesús Navas should all have a fun time in their match, while Galatasaray will play against Chelsea and that should be a very interesting matchup as well.
Bayern Munich will be considered one of the favorites after last year, but they will not have an easy go of it with Arsenal, while Zenit St. Petersburg plays against Borussia Dortmund. The final will be in Lisbon on May 24 and should be very anticipated like usual and teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid will also be considered favorites and that will come true if Lionel Messi gets back into action and he is expected to be back by the time the schedule picks up. Barcelona said they will not underestimate Manchester City and based on the way they have been performing, they should not and they had a great win last week on the Champions League schedule as well.
Check here for the schedule and group draw for the Champions League and more from SWR.
The Champions League draw:
Manchester City vs. Barcelona
Olympiakos vs. Manchester United
Galatasaray vs. Chelsea
Schalke vs. Real Madrid
Zenit St. Petersburg vs. Borussia Dortmund
Arsenal vs. Bayern Munich
A.C. Milan vs. Atlético Madrid
Bayer Leverkusen vs. Paris St.-Germain
