Champions League Round of 16: Manchester City and Arsenal draw favourable opponents
Premier League heavyweights Manchester City and Arsenal have picked up pretty favourable draws, landing FC Copenhagen and FC Porto respectively.
"In the group phase they played against Bayern Munich, Galatasaray and Manchester United and they went through. They were the second-best team in the group so it means a lot," said City's Director of Football Txiki Begiristain of drawing Copenhagen.
"They have been better than Manchester United and Galatasaray, two clubs with a much more experience in the Champions League than them. So we have to be careful."
The German champions Bayern Munich will be pleased as well, drawing out-of-form Lazio from Italy. Speaking of Serie A sides, Napoli face a tricky tie against Barcelona while Inter Milan also drew a Spanish giant in Atletico Madrid.
Real Madrid will fancy their chances against Bundesliga side RB Leipzig but Paris St-Germain have no easy task against LaLiga's Real Sociedad, a team that is yet to lose in the Champions League this season.
PSV Eindhoven, the red-hot Eredivisie side drew Borussia Dortmund and either could be one of the tournament’s dark horses.
"PSV Eindhoven is an attractive and challenging draw. At the moment Eindhoven is the measure of all things in the Netherlands," said Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl.
The draw is as follows:
FC Copenhagen vs Manchester City
Inter Milan vs Atletico Madrid
PSV Eindhoven vs Borussia Dortmund
The Champions League Round of 16 will be played across two legs in February and early March.
First legs: 13th/14th and 20th/21st of February 2024.
Return legs: 5th/6th and 12th/13th of March 2024.
The Champions League final is on Saturday, June 1st at Wembley Stadium in London.
For the draw, the 16 teams were divided into two groups - the first consisting of the group winners (seeded) and the second of the runners-up (unseeded). The seeded teams could not draw each other and vice versa for the unseeded.
There were two important additional criteria in the draw:
- Teams from the same country were not able to meet in the last 16.
- Teams from the same group were not able to meet in the last 16.