According to the second draw of the day this Monday, December 13, Lille will face Chelsea while Paris Saint-Germain will cross Real Madrid in the round of 16.
The first draw for the knockout stages of the Champions League was biased by a ” Technical problem “, Admitted UEFA on Monday. The organization canceled the drawn confrontations and decided to start the procedure all over again in the afternoon.
As with the first draw, Lille found themselves again facing Chelsea, the reigning European champion. Nothing changes on the side of Losc, which will have to pull out all the stops to hope to see the quarter-finals. The reigning French champion, who finds the European top 16 fifteen years after his first participation in 2007, will do well at Stamford Bridge on the first leg (15-16 and 22-23 February) before receiving the team from Thomas Tuchel at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium (8-9 and 15-16 March). ” It’s a wonderful poster. There will be two very big matches to play, first at Stamford Bridge and then at home, in front of our home crowd. Opposite is the defending champion. It will be a big challenge for us “, Commented during the first draw Jocelyn Gourvennec, coach of Lille.
Paris SG will therefore face Real Madrid in the round of 16 of the Champions League, with a Franco-French duel between Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema, best French player in the history of the Champions League (4 titles). The Parisians, second in their qualifying group, were almost guaranteed to fall on a European cador. The first draw, finally invalidated, had designated Manchester United as opponent for the Parisians. Mauricio Pochettino’s players will host Madrid for the first leg in February, before heading to Spain for the second leg in March. The Parisians, who hope to find Neymar, injured, by the final phase in February, are therefore moving towards a new duel against the club Merengue, after the opposition in pools in 2019 (a victory for Paris, a draw), and elimination in 8th of the 2018 edition.
► The draw:
RB Salzburg-Bayen Munich
Sporting Portugal-Manchester City
Benfica-Ajax Amsterdam
Chelsea-Lille
Atlético de Madrid-Manchester United
Villarreal-Juventus Turin
Inter Milan-Liverpool
Paris Saint-Germain-Real Madrid