Champions League
Champions League: Man City draw Real Madrid, Barca face PSG
Real Madrid and Manchester City will meet in a heavyweight Champions League quarterfinal between the past two winners and the only two teams still unbeaten in this season’s competition.
Madrid will host the first leg on April 9 or 10, and the return will be the week after in Manchester.
Kylian Mbappé’s path to a first Champions League title with Paris Saint-Germain in his farewell season there will next go through Barcelona.
PSG hosts the first leg as coach Luis Enrique faces his former club, which he led to the 2015 title with a Barcelona team that included Lionel Messi and Neymar, who were later reunited in Paris for two seasons.
Arsenal was drawn to play the first leg at home against Bayern Munich, whose star striker Harry Kane will go back to north London after leaving the Gunners’ archrival Tottenham this offseason. Bayern fans are banned from that game as part of a UEFA punishment for supporters setting off fireworks and throwing them towards the pitch at two previous games this season.
Kane has played Arsenal 19 times in all competitions and scored 14 goals. The former Tottenham Hotspur striker is the joint-top scorer in the Champions League this season alongside Antoine Griezmann, Erling Haaland and Mbappe with six goals.
Atletico Madrid was paired with Borussia Dortmund in the other game.
UEFA also made the draw for the semifinals, which ensured Mbappé and PSG could not meet Real Madrid—the team he is expected to join in the summer—until the final.
That draw arguably put the four strongest teams in the same half. When the new Champions League format takes effect next season, the two strongest teams in the expanded eight-game first phase will be seeded in a tennis-style knockout bracket and cannot meet until the final.
This time, the winner between Real Madrid and Manchester City—who were the only teams to win all six games in the group stage—will be away in the first leg against Arsenal or Bayern.
Atletico or Dortmund will host the first leg against PSG or Barcelona.
There was a familiar and powerful look to the drawing. It featured five European champions—who have combined to win 27 of the previous 68 titles—and three beaten finalists: Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, and PSG.
The semifinals are played between April 30 and May 8. The Champions League final will be held on June 1 at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium in London.
