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Man City face Real Madrid in the UCL Round of 16 for the fifth time. PSG play Chelsea, Newcastle meet Barcelona, and Liverpool take on Galatasaray.
Manchester City and Real Madrid have drawn each other again in the UEFA Champions League knockout phase.
(AFP)
Premier League giants Manchester City have drawn ‘Kings of Europe’ Real Madrid in a knockout tie of the UEFA Champions League for the fifth time in a row. For the 2025-26 season, the heavyweights will meet in a two-legged Round of 16 in March, with the winner advancing to the Quarterfinals.
Defending champions Paris Saint-Germain will take on the Club World Cup winners Chelsea. Other standout ties include Newcastle United against Barcelona and Liverpool against Galatasaray.
The 15-time European champions will host the first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium before travelling to England for the return fixture a week later. The sides have already met this season, with Pep Guardiola’s City winning 2-1 in Madrid during the league phase.
This marks the eighth campaign since 2012 in which the clubs have crossed paths in Europe, sharing recent knockout successes.
French champions PSG will meet Chelsea in Paris for the first leg. The teams have a recent European history, and last met in July’s Club World Cup final in the United States, where Chelsea triumphed 3-0 — however, the coach who led the West London side to that triumph, Enzo Maresca, was sacked recently and has been replaced by a younger, relatively unproven Liam Rosenior.
Rosenior shared a league with PSG as Strasbourg’s manager and would take confidence from their recent struggles.
Newcastle United take on Barcelona, with the opening leg at St James’ Park. Barcelona, too, played them earlier this year, winning at the raucous ground 2-1 there in September.
Two more London sides have made it to the last 16. Arsenal topped the group stage table and face Bayer Leverkusen, with a trip to Germany set to be a nostalgic one for Kai Havertz and Piero Hincapie, who is on loan at the Emirates Stadium from Leverkusen.
Mikel Arteta would be gushing, looking at arguably the most favorable path to the final in Budapest, which they earned with an unbeaten run in the league stage.
Tottenham Hotspur’s new manager, Igor Tudor’s campaign in the Premier League got off to a bad start in the Premier League against Arsenal and is facing a tough fight to avoid relegation. But he also inherited a team with comparatively excellent form in the UCL — they’ll meet Spanish giants Atletico Madrid.
Elsewhere, Bayern Munich play Atalanta, while Bodo/Glimt meet Sporting CP.
First legs are scheduled for March 10-11, with return matches the following week.
February 27, 2026, 17:13 IST
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