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The only elite side who will be sucking air through their teeth at the sight of this draw is Barcelona. Atletico Madrid was probably the one ball they did not want to see emerge opposite their own. Luis Enrique haughtily proclaimed this week that the side he'd fear most in the last eight was Barcelona. Well, make no mistake, Atletico and Diego Simeone will make him wish he never said that.
Atletico do not set the pulses racing with their football. They do not draw admiration for the attractiveness of their play. Their strategy could be described as clean sheets at all costs. In short, they are the opposite of Barcelona. They are brutally, devastatingly good at it. Atleti have conceded only three goals in the entire Champions League campaign so far. Two of those came in a group-stage aberration against Benfica.
Since then they are back to their machine-like selves. They are tight, ugly, effective and exactly the type of team that can eliminate Barca. They’ve done so before. En-route to the 2014 Champions League final, they put out Lionel Messi and co after two draws edged by an away goal. Barcelona, meanwhile, have only one win in their last six matches against Spanish teams in the Champions League.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge will be happy. In his capacity as Bayern Munich CEO he spoke out after his team's last 16 victory over Juventus this week to exclaim how unfair it was that such a big team as Juve would have to depart the competition before the meaningful football started.
In his opinion, Uefa would have to schedule the Champions League in such a way that more was done to prevent the big sides going out too early. Of course the subtext there comes in the fact that he is also the chair of the European Clubs Association, the increasingly influential body which looks after the interests of 220 clubs in 53 countries. The ECA is a major player in how European competitions are going to be structured from 2018 onwards once the current Uefa European Club Competition Cylce is complete. It is from there that whispers of the Super League emanate.
No such complaints this time for Herr Rummenigge. His Bayern have drawn Benfica. Real Madrid have drawn Wolfsburg. PSG will take on Manchester City. One tie had to be a close thing given the right clubs involved and that will be holders Barcelona against Atletico Madrid. As such, it was as good as it could possibly have been for Europe's elite teams.
More nice draws like this, which will funnel the richest to the last four, and Rummenigge's talk of a Super League might be quelled altogether.
“The objective of Paris St Germain is to one day win the Champions League,” the former PSG coach Carlo Ancelotti told Goal last week. “Last year they reached the quarter final. This year they want to be in the first four positions.”
A man with knowledge of the inner-workings of the Nasser al-Khelaifi regime knows better than anyone the value of this tournament to the Qatari Sports Investments ownership. After taking out Chelsea in the last 16 last year they met their end against Barcelona where they were comprehensively outdone. Now they’ve managed to evade the champions, as well as Bayern Munich and a Real Madrid side who beat them in the group stage.
It’s Manchester City who lie in wait and PSG now have a great opportunity to gain the experience of a semi-final berth. They are fortified after a great two-legged performance against Chelsea and should be able to count on a full complement come the quarters. City were widely seen as fortunate to have drawn Dynamo Kyiv in the last 16 and put in a very ordinary performance against the Ukrainians earlier in the week. Despite coming into Gulf money around the same time as PSG, it is the Parisians and not City who look like being worthy of their place in the semi finals.
Now the field has narrowed, more focus than ever before will be on each of these ties. The time could be right for some of European football's elite emerging players to deliver in front of a wider audience.
Renato Sanches is having his breakout season with Benfica - alongide fellow prospect Goncalo Guedes - and the tough teenager is already on the radar of Manchester United with prices as high as £60 million being discussed. He has the capability to run games despite his tender years and matches immense skills with a strong work ethic.
Adrien Rabiot had a short spell in the Manchester City youth sector before joining the PSG ranks in 2010 and he will be eager to show City what they missed out on. He excelled against Chelsea in the second leg of the last 16, scoring the goal which put PSG ahead on the night, and has another huge opportunity at the age of only 20 to shine on the European scene.
Another Frenchman, Kingsley Coman, has stepped up his football to a level that neither PSG nor Juventus foresaw when they let him go and the 19-year-old has delivered more assists than any other player in this season's Champions League. He was the difference-maker for Bayern against Juventus, coming off the bench to set up a late Thomas Muller header and score a brilliant goal in extra time.
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