Atleti or Leverkusen in the eighths of the Champions League for Real Madrid; PSG or Benfica for Barça

Real Madrid will face in the round of 16 of the Champions League to Atlétic UEFA will perform this Friday from 12.00 at the European football house in Nyon (Switzerland).

After eliminating Manchester City in his ‘playoff’ on the back of the Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, author of a ‘hat-trick’ in the second leg, Real Madrid has activated his fearsome way in search of another ‘Orejona’. The meringue team almost always blooms with the arrival of spring and now in the next phase the faces with old acquaintances will be seen.

An adversary could be the Leverkusen, currently led by the Spanish Xabi Alonso, a key piece when he played on the Madrid road to the tenth in 2014. Although Tolosarra lost that iconic final due to accumulation of yellow cards, it was a pillar that in the ‘in the’ Blanca ‘do not forget and that many long for as a future coach.

If the drums want it, Xabi Alonso will be measured before an Ancelotti Carlo who was one of his mentors … and maybe his predecessor on the meringue bench. But beyond rumors or theories, this hypothetical match would be lived more than two decades later. In a previous one, San Isidro’s Day of 2002, the whites won the novena.

After that 1-2 victory in the Hampden Park of Glasgow, with the Zinedine Zidane volley and the stops of the Iker Casillas substitute in the retina of the merengues fans, there were two other duels between Real Madrid and the aspirin team In the Group Phase of the 2004/05 campaign, resulted in a German victory and a draw.

Much more recent are the white team matches with its Madrid neighbor in the Champions League. Precisely the tenth set for Real against Atlético in the extension, having worked Sergio Ramos El Milagro in the 93rd minute. And in April 2015 they were measured in some rooms that decided a single goal, marked by Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández.

Then the San Siro final arrived in 2016, with a merengue smile after Juanfran Torres throws its penalty in the tiebreaker. And the last tie in the maximum continental tournament occurred in the semifinals of the 2016/17 course, where a play of Karim Benzema before the break preceded a target from Isco Alarcón and rescued the Real.

This gave ‘color’ chapters of a capital’s fight that in 1959 had already seen ‘in black and white’ semifinals of the extinct European Cup. The whites won the first leg 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium and the Atleti beat 1-0 in the old metropolitan; But a third tiebreaker game was set in Zaragoza and Real won 2-1.

Back to 2025, and if the Real does not touch him, the other option for mats is Bayern Munich, which in these sixteen suffered from beautiful to get rid of Celtic. A goal from Alphonso Davies in the discount prevented those of Glasgow from giving the surprise in the Allianz Arena.

Meanwhile, Barcelona’s opponent will be Benfica, who left the monaco in the ‘playoffs’, or the PSG, who crushed the Brest with a 0-3 in the first leg and a 7-0 in the return. If it is finally the Lisbon who put on the Blaugrana road, an meeting will be seen again that was already played on January 21 of this year.

During the 7th day of the league before sixteen, on the grass of the Da Luz stadium they both staged a thrilling face to face that ended 4-5 favorable to Barça, thanks to somewhat of Raphinha with epic airs, the counterattack and in copious rain .

But a few seasons, Benfica choked on the whole Culé when Ronald Koeman and Xavi Hernández carried command of a hot bench until the arrival of the current coach, a Hansi Flick that has his pupils fighting for all the titles of this season and improving their scoring figures every week.

Of course, the other possible rival of Barça is the aforementioned PSG, his executioner last year in the quarterfinals; Despite 2-3 of the first leg in the Park of the Princes, the picture trained by Luis Enrique Martínez thrashed 1-4 in the return played in the Estadi Olimpic Lluís Companys.

In addition, in the eighths of the 2020/21 season, also with a 1-4 on Barcelona soil, the PSG went from Ronda, which year after year occupies a place among the favorites to conquer the title, but that never ends up making the The dream of its president Nasser al-Khelaïfi.