Nyon - Saba:
The draw for the Champions League round of 16 play-off, which was held Friday, in the Swiss city of Nyon, resulted in strong confrontations, most notably a summit meeting between Real Madrid, the Spanish title holder, and Manchester City, the English champion of the previous edition.
The two teams were forced to play the play-off because they were unable to qualify directly to the round of 16, as Real Madrid ranked eleventh in the standings, while Manchester City ranked twenty-second.
This season's Champions League witnessed the participation of 36 teams in the league system for the first time, as each team played eight matches against eight different clubs, with four matches at home and four away, and the first eight clubs in the standings qualified for the round of 16, namely Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa.
While the teams that ranked from ninth to 24th went to the play-off stage to qualify for the round of 16.
In addition to the Real Madrid and Manchester City match, the draw resulted in an all-French match between Paris Saint-Germain and Brest, while Club Brugge of Belgium will meet Atalanta of Italy, Sporting Lisbon of Portugal will meet Borussia Dortmund of Germany, Celtic of Scotland will face Bayern Munich of Germany, Juventus of Italy will face PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands, Monaco of France will face Benfica of Portugal, and Feyenoord of the Netherlands will face Milan of Italy.
The first leg matches will be held on February 11 and 12, while the second leg matches will be held on February 18 and 19 of the same month.
The first leg matches will be held on the stadiums of the teams ranked from 9th to 16th in the league table.
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