UCL Round of 16: Arsenal to face Nightmare opponent Barcelona

Tottenham, like their London rivals, are set to meet opponents who have eliminated them in recent seasons after they drew Fiorentina in the Europa League last 32 for the second year running.

Champions League round of 16 draw: Gent v Wolfsburg, Roma v Real Madrid, Paris St Germain v Chelsea, Arsenal v Barcelona, Juventus v Bayern Munich, PSV Eindhoven v Atletico Madrid, Benfica v Zenit St Petersburg, Dynamo Kiev v Manchester City.

The euphoria had barely died down in the Arsenal camp after they beat Olympiakos 3-0 away in the sixth and final group game last week to secure qualification for the Round of 16, despite losing three of their first four matches.

The reigning Premier League champions will go head to head with PSG in February and March as they fight for a place in the quarter-finals of the tournament.

Barcelona director of sporting institutional relations Albert Soler said he was looking forward to “a very attractive game”.

It’s not going to be easy and it’s the team that most Arsenal fans would have wanted to avoid at this stage but it’s up to us to make a good fist of it.

Speaking ahead of their league match against St. Etienne, Blanc said: “We beat Chelsea once, they beat us once”.

Both PSG and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea are defending their respective domestic league titles this season, though the Londoners are facing a tougher time of it at present.

“This is the third year we play against Chelsea so it has become some kind of a “clasico” for us”, PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi said.

Although the club itself might point to some sort of typo to explain the freakish mistake, it seems odd to think that Brondby IF were the team selected, considering that they did not even feature in this year’s competition.

If we were to flip things round and say, hypothetically, that they managed to pull off a miraculous victory over Luis Enrique’s side, could there be a better boost of confidence for the squad? “They have a similar football philosophy to ours, they like to attack and to have the ball”.

“We were in a very complicated group and we did very well to come through it without too much difficulty”.

Such is the nature of the insular world of the Champions League elite, the same teams can draw each other fairly often.

They (Kiev) have a good side and it will be hard for us. “We are improving and gaining experience in the competition so we hope to do well”.

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp will be back in Germany when the Reds face Augsburg.

Former Champions League winners Borussia Dortmund and Porto also lock horns while Olym-pique de Marseille take on Athletic Bilbao.