Champions League knockouts to be drawn today: Here's what to expect on the Road to San Siro

There is something irresistibly magnetic about a Champions League night that one can’t really pin down. Maybe it’s the anthem, composed by Tony Britten in 1992 when the competition made the move to its modern format. A classical tune for football that is a class apart. Maybe it’s the time — far from the couch of weekend football, bang in the middle of the week, and the middle of the night. It’s certainly not for those who get tired and tuck in early on Wednesday nights. Or maybe it’s the accumulated myth attached with the competition over ages — a gladiator-esque contest designed for ‘champions’, where fans, players, managers, clubs and fixtures become more than what they are. They become what they believe in — their better selves. There are big clubs in the Champions League, but no club is small in the elite European showdown. Speaking of showdowns, the knockout phase is here. The Champions League group stage has run its course. ‘The flop’, as they say in Texas Hold ’em, is laid out. Sixteen teams have fought hard, some have beaten odds to reach the round of 16. Now it’s time for ’the turn’. Come Monday, the draw for the round of 16 will put teams head to head. Each of them will get 180 minutes to prove they are better, stronger than the other one. The group stage wasn’t short of surprises, neither was it lacking the obvious. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich romped through their respective groups, as expected. But more intriguing were the fates of English teams. Once mighty in Europe, English teams seem to have gone through a messy divorce with the competition. Right up till the final round of group stage fixtures started, it seemed English teams were facing a Shakespearean tragedy. Ninety minutes later, three out of four English teams were through to the round of 16. Manchester City had already made the cut, breaking the curse of the group of death. Chelsea scraped through, wishing away their Premier League form on midweek nights, and Arsenal did a Liverpool — they needed to win by a two-goal margin against Olympiacos to advance, they did it with three. It was only Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United that stumbled at the hurdle. The draw So, what can we expect from the business end of the competition? Sure, there will be a few one-sided affairs in the round of, 16 with the group toppers lining up to face runners-up. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Zenit, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester City and Wolfsburg, topped their respective groups and will be going up against PSG, Juventus, PSV, Benfica, Arsenal, Roma, Dynamo Kiev and Gent in the draw. Of course, compatriot clubs can’t face each other. Still, the draw offers the possibility of few lucrative fixtures. [caption id=“attachment_2543056” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Champions League matchball. Reuters[/caption] In Champions League, history often repeats itself. Just like last year, Chelsea could go up against PSG, a match that promises to be of high intensity. Last year, PSG edged out the Londoners after a spirited performance at Stamford Bridge. PSG have a solid, well-balance team and Zlatan Ibahimovic. They probably want to win the crown more than any club and Chelsea has had a horror of a season till now. But revenge, as they say, is a dish best served in the round of 16. Another tempting fixture that one can expect from the draw would be Arsenal taking on Atletico Madrid. Atletico, spurned by the talismanic Antoine Griezmann, have been hot on the heels of Barca in the Spanish League (just two points behind). And Arsenal, despite losing crucial players to injuries, are capable of producing electric football on any given day. And Champions League knockout phase is nothing but a series of any-given-days. While the Gunners would be looking to break their round of 16 jinx, City would be yearning to make a mark on the knockout phase. City could draw with PSG too, and what a match-up it would be, providing Aguero stays fit. The individual battles in that possible fixture are right out of a football fan’s fantasy — Sergio Aguero and Thiago Silva, Yaya Toure up against Marco Verratti, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Vincent Kompany. Last year’s finalists Juventus have lost much steam this season, weakened by the departure of Carlos Tevez, Arturo Vidal and the one and only Andrea Pirlo. Their predicament can be understood from the fact that they finished second in the group, a point behind Manchester City despite beating them home and away. Juventus-Chelsea could be another possible draw, and a very interesting one at that — both reigning champions at home and both going through, to put it mildly, a rough patch. The favourites When it comes to being favourites to not just clear the round of 16, but come out holding the best cards on ’the river’ and actually go on and win the competition, Barcelona and Bayern are wielding a gun in a knife-fight. It’s unfair how good those two are. Last season, Barca’s holy trinity — Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez — scored a record 122 goals in a treble-winning season. They look in no mood to stop. Barca’s front three has got to be the best attacking combination of our times. If any team can break the back-to-back Champions League wins jinx, for anyone’s money, it is Barcelona. Bayern too has been way ahead of the curve. Though we did see Bayern falter at the hands of Arsenal in London, the Bavarians bared their teeth in the return fixture. A Barcelona-Bayern final, if it happens, will make football fans across the world salivate. The extent of Barca and Bayern’s superiority can be gauged from the fact that nobody is calling  a team as strong as Real Madrid favourites. Nevertheless, Real Madrid is a force of nature and Cristiano Ronaldo is a man on a mission. He has already scored 11 goals in the group stage itself. Real Madrid must fancy their chances in any competition they enter. They are after all, Real Madrid. The dark horses When Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012, Inter Milan in 2010 and Liverpool in 2005, they were not favourites. And even with Barcelona, Bayern and Real galloping towards the top prize in club football, one can’t rule out dark horses making the race interesting. PSG has the players and the will to go all the way. But to win the Champions League, they’ll have to run the race of their lifetime. Atletico Madrid made it to the finals in 2014, playing impossible football. They pressed like a steamroller and ran like Usain Bolt on speed, running out of gas as they came agonisingly close to a historic La Liga-Champions league double. But to reach San Siro, they might just run that extra mile.