Champions League holders Real Madrid have been drawn against Chelsea F.C.
quarterfinals
Friday’s draw takes Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti back to face his former club, which
was eliminated by a goal from Karim Benzema in extra time a year ago.
This time, the first leg between the past two Champions League winners will be in
Madrid instead of London — on April 11 or 12.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola also has a reunion with a former club. The
English champions were drawn to face Bayern Munich, which has won all eight of its
games in the competition this season and will play the first leg in Manchester.
Bayern twice kept Paris Saint-Germain forwards Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé
from scoring in the round of 16. The team will now face the tournament’s leading
scorer in Erling Haaland, who had five goals on Tuesday in City’s 7-0 rout of Leipzig.
“Our team has shown it can handle him,” Bayern director Michael Gerlinger said of
Haaland, who was with Borussia Dortmund for the past two seasons. “There are
players like Erling that you can never 100% neutralize so he is still very, very
dangerous.”
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The winner between City and Bayern will go on to play Madrid or Chelsea in the
semifinals. That half of the draw includes four of the top-five teams in the UEFA
rankings by results in European competitions over the past five years.
The other half of the draw is dominated by Italian clubs with the possibility of a
Milan derby in the semifinals.
AC Milan will first face Napoli, the runaway Serie A leader which is making its debut
in the quarterfinals of the Champions League or the old European Cup. The first leg is
at San Siro.
Inter Milan will play at Benfica in the first leg, returning to the country where it
eliminated Porto in the round of 16.
Inter is playing at this stage of the competition for the first time in 12 years, while
Milan is ending an 11-year wait. Inter is ranked No. 12 by UEFA and seven-time
European champion Milan is down at No. 36.
Six former champions who have combined for 34 titles in the 68-year history of the
competition were in the draw. Only Napoli and Man City have yet to be European
champions.
The first legs will be played on April 11 and 12. The return games are scheduled for
April 18 and 19.
The semifinal matches will be played between May 9-17 and the final is set for June
10 at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul.
In the Europa League quarterfinals, Manchester United will play its fourth Spanish
opponent in the competition.
After facing Real Sociedad in the group stage, Man United eliminated Barcelona and
then Real Betis and will return to the same city to next face Sevilla — a record six-
time champion of the competition.
The winner will face either Juventus or Sporting Lisbon in the semifinals.
The other half of the draw paired Feyenoord and Roma — a rematch of the inaugural
Europa Conference League final last year won by the Italian team — and Bayer
Leverkusen with Union Saint-Gilloise.
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