Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea to discover Champions League opponents
Xenia Sports – London
Liverpool, Manchester City, and Chelsea will discover their Champions League last 16 opponents on Monday.
All three English sides will be seeded in the draw at UEFA’s Nyon headquarters, meaning they will avoid champions Bayern Munich and other big guns such as 13-time winners Real Madrid, Juventus, Paris St Germain, and Borussia Dortmund.
The likes of Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and RB Leipzig, however, could lie in wait.
Atalanta, Lazio, Borussia Monchengladbach, Porto and Sevilla are the other unseeded sides in the draw.
Liverpool, winners two seasons ago, cannot face Atalanta as they were in the same group. Similarly, City cannot be paired with Porto and Chelsea cannot be drawn against Sevilla. Otherwise, they can be pitted against any of the unseeded teams.
The ties will be played in February and March, with the Premier League sides, as winners of their respective groups, playing at home in the second legs.
Also on Monday, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Leicester, and Rangers will learn who they will face in the last 32 of the Europa League.
United dropped into the second-tier competition after finishing third behind PSG and Leipzig in their Champions League group. The other British sides all came through by winning groups in the early stages and, along with United, will be seeded.
They therefore cannot face sides such as AC Milan, Ajax, Napoli, Roma, Shakhtar Donetsk, or PSV Eindhoven. Notable unseeded teams, they could play include Benfica (except for Rangers), Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Kiev, and Real Sociedad.
