Real Madrid will face Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarterfinals, while Barcelona take on Juventus.
Real Madrid will face Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarterfinals, while Barcelona take on Juventus.
Premier League champions Leicester City, who secured a surprise success over Sevilla in the round of 16, will play Atletico Madrid.
The final tie sees Borussia Dortmund play Monaco, who defeated Manchester City on away goals in the last round.
Real Madrid's director of institutional relations, Emilio Butragueno, was disappointed at drawing Bayern Munich and said he would have hoped to face them later in the competition.
"Bayern are one of the worst opponents we could get, no doubt," Butragueno told beIN Sports. We know each other very well, the two teams.
"We must go into the games knowing how difficult it will be. They have top-class players in every position, with so much experience. It is a great club. We have a very good relationship with them. We would have liked to meet them later in the competition, but the draw is this, and we must take it on."
The second leg at home at the Bernabeu was a slight advantage, Butragueno said, assuming Madrid get a good result in Germany.
"If we get a good result there, then yes," he said. "The second game at home gives you a very slight advantage. But we must play a good game there. We know that 20 good minutes from Bayern can be deadly for us. Today is not the best draw we could have got. But we are a team with top players and lots of experience. It is a very nice tie to be able to play, and everybody will be watching these games."
The tie brings current Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti back to the club where he won the Champions League in 2013-14, his first season in charge. But he was then sacked by president Florentino Perez after he finished his second season without winning a major trophy.
"Carlo is a great coach, with so much experience," Butragueno said. "He has won everything as a player and as a coach, which tells you everything. We will talk these days. We get on very well with him. He is a gentleman who knows a lot about football. So it is not such good news for us."
Ancelotti, meanwhile, said he is "excited" by Bayern's tie against his "fantastic" former club.
Barcelona vice president Jordi Mestre hopes to avoid the mistakes made against Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 in order to ensure a smoother passage against Juventus.
"The draw is the draw. There are no easy teams in the quarterfinals, but we always get tough ties," he told beIN Sports. "There's a good dynamic at the moment, and morale is sky high, but that doesn't mean we're going to go through.
"I respect Juve a lot. The advantage of playing the second leg at home is conditioned a lot by what happens in the first game -- we hope it's not the same as Paris. We have to score in Turin."
But Juve director Pavel Nedved talked up their chances and said "we are capable of challenging" Barca.
Atletico director Clemente Villaverde was asked on beIN Sports whether his team were delighted to have drawn Leicester, seen by most pundits in Spain as the weakest of the eight teams left in the competition.
"I don't know about that, as in their last tie and in the groups they showed they are a team who must be taken into account," Villaverde said. "When you are in the quarterfinals, among the best eight teams in Europe, you must respect all opponents.
"Leicester are here on their own merits. They overcome a very important team like Sevilla in the last round. For sure it will be a very difficult tie. This will be really difficult for us. We played them in the UEFA Cup in the 1990s, and we hope to follow the same steps this time."
Villaverde added that Atletico would not make the same mistakes as Sevilla did in the round of 16 against Leicester, with Diego Simeone's team having the experience to not let chances slip in such big games.
"Atletico must learn to take their chances when they get them," he said. "Sevilla had quite bad luck over the two games. They were better over the two games. But football is like that. If you
Post A Comment:
0 comments so far,add yours