The stage is set for the most exciting part of the football season: the Champions League knockout stages.
Monday's draw revealed the round-of-16 lineup, setting up eight mouthwatering clashes between some of the continent's best, all of whom have spent the last three-and-a-bit months fighting for the right to continue in this competition.
In our estimation, this is the best round-of-16 draw for several years.
Here's where the pressure truly kicks in, as the elite chase the ultimate trophy in club football. This is the pinnacle. This is the peak. This is where cases to be named great—either individually or as a team—are staked.
B/R Football @brfootballDortmund vs. PSG Real Madrid vs. Man City Atalanta vs. Valencia Atletico vs. Liverpool Chelsea vs. Bayern Lyon vs. Juventus Tottenham vs. RB Leipzig Napoli vs. Barcelona The last 16. Bring it. 💥 #UCLdraw https://t.co/4hA0hpMcDa
There's a lot of football to be played between now and February 18, which is when the first games will be played. It makes predicting how these ties play out a dicey business.
A case-in-point of that is last year's tussle between Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain. At the time of the draw, the Red Devils looked desperate, still managed by Jose Mourinho, and no match for the French champions. But that crazy night in Paris two-and-a-half months later stands testament to how much can change in a short span.
All of that said, we've taken a stab at predicting how each of the eight round-of-16 ties pan out anyway. Call us silly, call us martyrs, call us whatever you like, but here's how we think it all plays out.
All predictions are aggregate score predictions.
Borussia Dortmund vs. Paris Saint-Germain
The first tie drawn was Dortmund vs. PSG, a low-key cracker.
Many have spent the last four months trying to figure out exactly how good both of these sides are. Their dips in form are alarming, but their peaks are truly five-star.
Judging it from far out, it's a bad matchup from BVB's perspective. Not only will they come up against a former manager in Thomas Tuchel, who will have the inside read on several of their players, but they're poorly setup to deal with speed in behind—something PSG boast plenty of.
Dortmund manager Lucien Favre doesn't coach a particularly ferocious press, yet he still plays a high defensive line, allowing forwards who spin in behind ample opportunity to deal damage. If he doesn't adjust heavily, he'll get burned by Kylian Mbappe and Co.
The flanks will also be a concern, with none of Dortmund's full-backs particularly well equipped to stop the likes of Neymar and Angel Di Maria—though that's at least a concern both managers share, as Tuchel will have his own worries over Jadon Sancho, Marco Reus, and Achraf Hakimi.
Expect goals for both sides and plenty of excitement, with PSG coming out on top.
Prediction: Dortmund 2-4 PSG
Real Madrid vs. Manchester City
Pep Guardiola vs. Real Madrid? Sign us up for the full 180 minutes, all the preamble, every second of each press conference and a full Amazon documentary of the tie, too.
We saw fireworks aplenty whenever Guardiola stalked the Bernabeu touchline as manager of Barcelona or Bayern Munich. There's little reason to believe things won't spark again when he returns as manager of Man City.
Both sides will be hoping they improve immeasurably by the time this fixture rolls around. Madrid are already on a clear upward curve but need to climb further, while City need players back from injury as soon as possible.
It's reasonable to expect Aymeric Laporte to be back by this point, and that makes a massive difference to the potential outcome. He'll shore up City's leaky defence, improve them on the ball and perhaps return Fernandinho to the midfield role he excels at.
Without him, it would be tough to have confidence in City keeping Karim Benzema and Co. at arm's length, but with him, they probably shade it.
Prediction: Real Madrid 2-3 Manchester City
Atalanta vs. Valencia
Both Atalanta and Valencia will be toasting the perfect draw on Monday evening. While neither will consider this an easy tie, it's by far the kindest they could have received; a damn sight better than playing almost anyone else in the last 16.
Valencia qualified through an extremely up-and-down group via some extremely up-and-down performances. A squeaky win over Ajax on Matchday 6 not only earned them passage, but a group winner's path. Many are still stumped as to how it happened.
Their unpredictability is a curse when it comes to projecting, as on paper they're a weaker and less cohesive side than Atalanta. But they can be solid when they need to be, and when their attackers hit a vein of form, they can be dangerous.
In that sense, they're the opposite to Atalanta, who you can absolutely count on to play one way: expansive, attacking football in a system that throws players forward, gets goals from wing-backs, and runs through the superlative Alejandro Gomez.
The Bergamo side took three weeks to get to grips with Champions League football but now look comfortable on the highest stage. This fairtytale could well continue.
Prediction: Atalanta 3-1 Valencia
Atletico Madrid vs. Liverpool
If there was one (drawable) team Diego Simeone was likely looking to avoid, it was probably Liverpool.
That's not simply because they're the reigning European champions—though that of course stands a marker of the Reds' quality and plays a part. It's because, as matchups go, this is an absolute nightmare for Atletico Madrid.
They are a team expected to improve as the season wears on, as they said goodbye to a series of long-term servants last summer and rebuilds take some time, but the chances of them reaching a point where they can compete with Liverpool in February seem slim.
Los Colchoneros have consistently struggled to clear balls into the box cleanly this season, and here they'll face up against two of the best crossers in the world in Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.
They're also a top striker short of being able to truly fluster the best defences in the world; Alvaro Morata might already be nervous about trying to find a way around Virgil van Dijk.
Atleti are reloading, the future is promising, but this is a step too far for now.
Prediction: Atletico 0-3 Liverpool
Chelsea vs. Bayern Munich
Usually, when a tie throws up a rematch of a recent Champions League final, it means you're in for a high-level encounter.
But every rule has its exception, and Chelsea vs. Bayern might just be that right now. Both are good sides, great on their day, but are dealing with sizeable flaws that make this one intriguing for different reasons.
How Frank Lampard plans on dealing with the threat of Robert Lewandowski and his horde of creative speedsters is anyone's guess. Given how unsure they've been at defending corners, crosses and general balls into the box, it's not hard to envision one of the best strikers in the game taking advantage of them.
Likewise, with injuries crippling Bayern's back line, Chelsea's aggressive pressure and intricate dribbling in the final third is going to cause a whole host of problems.
It feels like a bit of a coin flip. With both sides unlikely to be able to stop each other, it might come down to who holds their nerve in the final throes of the tie. Does the old "experience" cliche come into play here?
Prediction: Chelsea 3-4 Bayern Munich
Lyon vs. Juventus
It's been a terrible seven days or so for Lyon.
They've had player-fan relation troubles; they've seen two of their best players, Memphis Depay and Jeff Reine-Adelaide, ruled out for the rest of the season due to ACL injuries; and now they've drawn Juventus in the Champions League round of 16.
In truth, the odds were always against them here. Unless they lucked into the Valencia draw that Atalanta did, it was going to be tough.
Juventus may actually be counting their own blessings following this draw. They may have only lost once this season, but the Maurizio Sarri project has definitely plateaued lately, and there's plenty to figure out ahead of the resumption of this competition.
Aside from perhaps Barcelona, no club is under more pressure to win the Champions League this season than Juventus. They spent big on Cristiano Ronaldo with one aim in mind, and there's only a finite amount of time to make that goal a reality.
Drawing a Lyon side who struggled in attack even with Memphis and Reine-Adelaide fit surely gives them an even bigger window to work the kinks out of their system. It's a clear win.
Prediction: Lyon 0-3 Juventus
Tottenham Hotspur vs. RB Leipzig
It may lack the star power of Dortmund vs. PSG or Real Madrid vs. Man City, but this tie is intriguing in its own quirky ways.
We're still figuring out exactly what Jose Mourinho's Tottenham are supposed to look like, and with a January transfer window between now and kick-off, it's anyone's guess what this team will actually comprise of.
RB Leipzig are an easier call: Julian Nagelsmann's men are top of the Bundesliga, settled in their way of working and seem unlikely to change considerably between now and February.
So Spurs, and their development under Mourinho, hold the key to how this tie plays out.
Play it tomorrow and Leipzig win, with their rapier-like attack and penetrating wing-backs likely to be too much for the Premier League side. Blindside movements off Davinson Sanchez and the overloading of Danny Rose and/or Serge Aurier on the flanks would prove devastating.
But play it in February, with two more months of Mourinho coaching under the Spurs players' belts and, perhaps, some longer-term solutions with regard to certain players' futures sorted and perhaps some new signings...and you might have a very different game.
Prediction: Spurs 2-3 RB Leipzig
Napoli vs. Barcelona
Napoli qualified for the round of 16 courtesy of a comfortable win over Genk then promptly fired their manager, Carlo Ancelotti.
There's a lot going on behind the scenes at that club; owner Aurelio De Laurentiis fined his players a collective €2.5 million in November, per ESPN FC's Andrew Cesare Richardson, because of poor performances and their refusal to attend a training camp he'd organised.
How this plays out over the next two months is anyone's guess, but it's difficult to foresee them righting the ship to the point where they can compete with Barcelona, who qualified first from the toughest group on offer and are really starting to purr.
They might even sell some of their best players, making that task even harder.
Gennaro Gattuso has taken over Napoli, and if his work at Milan is anything to go by, we're going to watch a cautious, defensive Partenopei side attempt to grind through 180 minutes with Lionel Messi and nick it. That almost never works.
Prediction: Napoli 1-3 Barcelona
All statistics via WhoScored.com
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Predicting the Outcome of Every Last-16 Champions League Tie - Bleacher Report
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