Champions League round of 16 draw

The round of 16 draw for the knockout stage of the Champions League was made last Monday.

As usual the luck of the draw produced some sumptuous heavyweight encounters whilst allowing some minnows to progress further to the quarter finals.

My prediction for the group stage this year was better than average: I predicted 12 teams right & four wrong, the four I got wrong who did not make it to the round of 16 were: Man Utd, Porto, Leverkusen & Valencia.

Predicting the results of round of 16 is always harder because there's so much that can happen from mid Dec to mid February, both in terms of team form (e.g. Chelsea with a new coach) & players recovering from injury (e.g. in case of Bayern & Arsenal both of whom have several injured players who should be ok by Feb).

On paper however, some teams are clear favourites regardless of their opponents:

Barcelona vs Arsenal will be the most exciting tie of the round as both teams play attractive attacking football. But even with a fully fit team, Arsenal neither have the quality nor the mental strength to match Barcelona

Real Madrid may be have been inconsistent since the appointment of Rafa Benitez, but Roma are even more unpredictable & only made it with a mere 6 points.

Bayern in my view are clear favourites to beat Juventus unless by February the "on again off again" data of Pep Guardiola's tenure totally unsettle the players.

PSG will account for Chelsea as long as they take their current form into the new year. This is even if Mourinho's temporary replacement pulls the team together & the topic of his replacement does not drag the team down any further.

Manchester City have finally been given the chance to get to quarter finals & as long as they show consistency they should be able to account for Dynamo Kiev.

Wolfsburg will account for a brave Gent side & should consider themselves very lucky with the draw.

Atletico Madrid's experience should account for the bravery of the surprise package PSV, although I personally would like to see a Dutch team back in the quarter final stage & hope PSV win.

Meanwhile whilst Zenit were one of the earliest qualifiers & dominated their group, I believe Benfica can & should do better & I hope to see Benfica progress through