The Champions League makes a much anticipated comeback tonight with revenge in the air in some of the round of 16 pairings. Paris Saint-Germain, Schalke and Manchester City go into their next games with scores to settle from last season’s showdown.
The draw for the next round has given these teams a chance to get their own back against rivals who knocked them out of the competition last season: Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively. In this last case, the first round of 16 match between the Spanish and English clubs has been put back a week.
Chelsea, current leaders of the Premier League, knocked PSG out of the quarter-finals last year in a nail-biting event. The French set-up had won 3-1 at home to the English team, but then lost 2-0 at Stamford Bridge with Demba Ba scoring the winner in the last minutes of the game.
Shakhtar Donetsk, meanwhile, are to take on Pep Guardiola’s Bayern. It’s a most peculiar situation for the home team, its country at war and their national league paralyzed. On the other hand, Bayern are sitting pretty at the top of the Bundesliga. The German team are set on lifting ‘Ol’ Big Ears’ this season, after crashing out of the competition last year in the semis.
The reigning champions will have their say on Wednesday as Real Madrid are to visit Gelsenkirchen once again to face a Schalke team out for revenge. This time last year, and at this point in the tournament, the Spanish team gave their rivals a severe pummeling, coming out of the two games with an aggregate score of 9-2.
Basel, meanwhile, are all set to take on Porto at the Estadio do Dragão, Portugal.
