Below, The National offers a guide to Monday’s Uefa Champions League last 16 draw:
What time is it?
This is an important detail. The draw starts locally at noon in Nyon, Switzerland, where Uefa is headquartered, and at 3pm here in the UAE. Keep in mind these kinds of draws are known for lengthy introductions – it’s usually safe to assume it’ll be at least 15 or 30 minutes, or even longer, until anything is actually revealed.
How can you watch it?
Also important! It will be streamed for free on Uefa's website. There's no specific link to a stream available yet, but it's safe to assume it will feature prominently on their homepage by Monday morning.
The basics:
Eight group winners will be paired against eight group runners-up. Teams who competed in the same group or are from the same country cannot be drawn against each other.
– The group winners are: Real Madrid, Wolfsburg, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Zenit St Petersburg
– The group runners up are: Paris Saint-Germain, PSV Eindhoven, Benfica, Juventus, AS Roma, Arsenal, Dynamo Kiev, Gent
Wait, Gent?
Yup! Valencia and Lyon turned in mediocre group campaigns and Belgium’s Gent took advantage to become the first side from their country to reach the knockout stage. Dynamo Kiev are also at this stage for the first time in 16 years.
What else to look out for?
Obviously, no team from the second group will want to be paired with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, the three presumed favourites. Of the second group, runaway French leaders Paris Saint-Germain might be the danger team.
Arsenal survived to this stage by the skin of their teeth, and will be looking to ride a second life to their European Cup campaign into the quarter-finals for the first time since 2010, after some rough draws in recent years.
Manchester City are surely thankful to be in as group winners, after losing to Barcelona and Bayern Munich at this stage the last two seasons. And Chelsea, mired in a miserable domestic campaign, will hope they can mimic the outcome from three seasons back, when they finished sixth in the Premier League but won the Champions League title.
Juventus reached the Champions League final this year and, despite a weak start to the Italian domestic campaign, emerged out of a difficult group that also featured Sevilla and Borussia Monchengladbach in addition to City.
Any sleepers?
Andre Villas-Boas coached Zenit turned in the third-best group stage performance, with 15 points and a plus-7 goal difference. That’s also the group unfancied Gent came out of, but it might nonetheless suggest some fight in the Russian champions. PSV are enjoying strong domestic form and orchestrated one of the memorable upsets of the group stage, beating Manchester United 2-1 in the opening fixture and sending Louis van Gaal’s side on a path to the Europa League.
Any lurking disappointments?
Last year there were no English teams in the quarter-finals, and all three of the Premier League clubs in this year’s knockout stage are vulnerable enough there’s at least some risk that could happen again. Wolfsbug admirably won their group, but they’re just fifth in the Bundesliga at the moment and reached the group stage with the second-lowest Uefa club coefficient remaining. Roma managed to get to this stage despite a minus-5 goal difference and only one win – they’re also mired in poor form in Serie A.
When are these games anyway?
The first legs will be played February 16-17 and the second legs a week later February 23-24. Enjoy the draw.
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