Ultimate Guide to Champions League Round-of-16 Week 2: Time for Super Tuesday
The first batch of fixtures in this season’s Champions League last 16 didn’t disappoint, with two home wins and two away wins keeping—in most cases—the ties very much alive going into the second legs, so what are we set for this time around?
Including an evening when football fans around the world will have to get in front of two television screens in order to not miss a second of the action, here’s your ultimate guide.
Tuesday, February 23
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Arsenal vs. Barcelona, Emirates Stadium, London, 7.45 p.m. GMT / 2.45 p.m. ET
After five successive eliminations at this stage of the competition (to Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich twice and Monaco, fact fans), Arsene Wenger is desperate to take his Arsenal side at least one step further this season. However, he’s come up against a pretty serious roadblock.
Barcelona are playing the type of football we’ve rarely seen on this planet, and their celebrated band of brothers will arrive in north London not just thinking about making it through this tie but also about defending the trophy they won in Berlin last June.
Arsenal have become painfully used to bowing their heads and succumbing to a European heavyweight in the Champions League, but after coming through their nightmare start to the group phase and given what has been an encouraging Premier League season, there would have been a different feel about this clash had the draw been a little kinder.
Instead, what we should see here is Barca looking to control the game and merely set things up for the second leg, where a ninth successive quarter-final appearance should be secured.
With Luis Suarez returning to England in remarkable form—12 goals in his last seven games and 41 in 37 across the season—it would be no surprise to see them claim a narrow victory, but you suspect the real damage will be done at the Camp Nou.
Prediction: Arsenal 1-2 Barcelona
Juventus vs. Bayern Munich, Juventus Stadium, Turin, 7.45 p.m. GMT / 2.45 p.m. ET
This is a fixture that has only become more and more enticing in the two months since the draw was made, with Juventus’ excellent run of form and Pep Guardiola’s announcement that he will stand down as Bayern Munich coach in the summer only making it all the more fascinating.
It has been five seasons since Bayern failed to make at least the semi-finals, but in a reconstituted and refocused Juventus, they’ll find a side that will fully believe a second successive final appearance is possible.
Massimiliano Allegri’s men might have seen their record and remarkable 15-match winning streak in Serie A come to an end with a goalless draw at Bologna on Friday, but the chances are that more than a few pairs of eyes had already turned to this fixture before that trip across northern Italy.
The revelation Guardiola will be heading to Manchester City in the summer has undoubtedly taken something of the shine away from Bayern, who were previously believed to be on course for the trophy by many as Guardiola ruthlessly hunted success to again try and prove himself. With his City contract now signed, he doesn’t really need to do that any more.
Regardless, this is surely the most fascinating of the last-16 ties and probably the most difficult to predict, with Bayern’s failure to become the first club to beat Juventus four times in a row in the Champions League perhaps the safest option.
Juve could take a narrow lead to Bavaria.
Prediction: Juventus 2-1 Bayern Munich
Wednesday, February 24
Dynamo Kiev vs. Manchester City, NSK Olimpiyskiy, Kiev, 7.45 p.m. GMT / 2.45 p.m. ET
Manchester City have been here before, but never under this much pressure.
With their Premier League title bid falling flat, and having seen a much-changed side knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea on Sunday, City arrive in Kiev knowing that for the first time in their recent history, they are expected to come through a Champions League last-16 tie.
Their only two previous ones in the competition's current format were against Barcelona, but this clash comes against a Dynamo Kiev side that muddled through the group stage to ensure a first appearance at this stage in 17 years.
Boasting a record of more clean sheets in this season’s competition than everyone bar Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, there’s plenty to be optimistic about for Sergei Rebrov’s men, but they’ll need to take a decent lead back to Manchester if they are spring a surprise and inflict surely the worst moment of City’s fairly up-and-down season upon them.
The visitors—who face a League Cup final date with Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday—will be buoyed by the return of Vincent Kompany. But with their surprising record of just one clean sheet in their last 21 Champions League matches (the crucial win in Rome last season), they are going to have to rely on a Sergio Aguero away goal if they want to get something here.
Prediction: Dynamo Kiev 1-1 Manchester City
PSV Eindhoven vs. Atletico Madrid, Philips Stadion, Eindhoven, 7.45 p.m. GMT / 2.45 p.m. ET
The first Dutch team to escape the group stage since PSV themselves made it to the quarter-finals in 2007, there will be great optimism in Eindhoven that the hosts can keep up their 100 per cent home record in the Champions League this season following group-stage wins over Manchester United, Wolfsburg and CSKA Moscow.
It has to be said Atletico Madrid are superior to all of those, though. Diego Simeone will arrive in the Netherlands with a clear plan of what his side will have to do to make it past this stage for the third consecutive season.
Simeone’s Atletico project goes on despite what are certain to be admiring glances from elsewhere at both him and his players. He’ll see this tie as a perfect challenge given his tactics often seem perfect for tight, tense first legs.
Phillip Cocu, like Simeone once a fiercely competitive midfielder, has his side in excellent form domestically following eight successive Eredivisie wins and 18 unbeaten, but the harsh truth is neither the standard of the Eredivisie nor PSV’s Champions League group-stage opponents can match up to Atletico’s solid, hard-working team ethic. It should be that which comfortably wins the first leg and the tie.
Prediction: PSV Eindhoven 0-2 Atletico Madrid
