City drawn against Barcelona in Champions League last 16

City drawn against Barcelona in Champions League last 16
By Euronews
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Welcome back to The Corner, our weekly trip around the world of football. Last week the Champions League’s Group stage came to an end and now we

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Welcome back to The Corner, our weekly trip around the world of football.

Last week the Champions League’s Group stage came to an end and now we know the match-ups for the Last 16.

As usual it has presented some cracking ties.

So the best of the European bunch move on to the last 16 in the Champions League.

English premier League champions Manchester City will lock horns with four-times winners Barcelona for a second consecutive year.

The Catalan giants beat City 4-1 on aggregate last season, winning 2-0 at the Etihad and then 2-1 at the Camp Nou.

Of the fixture Barca boss Luis Enrique said: “This is a hard and complicated rival, one of the most complicated in the tournament and one of the teams likely to win it.”

Chelsea have been drawn against Paris Saint Germain in a repeat of last season’s quarter-finals.

Arsene Wenger will face his former club as Arsenal take on Monaco.

Last season’s runners up Atletico Madrid will play Bayer Leverkusen.

Heavyweights Bayern Munich face Shakhtar Donetsk, Juventus take on Borussia Dortmund, Basel are up against Porto while Champions Real Madrid will face Schalke.

The two-legged ties will be played in February and March.

Up and Down

Now lets have a look at who has made our Up and down list this week.

David De Gea is arguably the best goalkeeper in the English Premier League if not the world at the moment. The Spaniard once again proved his worth for Man United producing a string of excellent saves to keep Liverpool at bay. – the Spanish wall between the posts make our up list.

De Gea leads us nicely to our first down of the week – last season’s runners up Liverpool have gone from ruthless to toothless in nine months. The defeat against United was their 7th this term and has put boss Brendan Rodgers firmly on the managerial tightrope.

Also on the down, although its not quite crisis time, are French champions Paris Saint-Germain.

The capital club suffered their first league defeat since May losing to Guingamp. It immediately follows PSG’s defeat in the Champions League by Barcelona last week.

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On This Day

He didn’t win many trophies in his career, but Les Ferdinand hit the sports headlines exactly 13 years ago after scoring the Premier League’s 10 000th goal.

On 15 December 2001, Tottenham striker Les Ferdinand scored the Premier League’s 10,000th goal, helping to deliver a win for his team and £10,000 to charity.

The milestone goal came during a match against Fulham at White Hart Lane in the Premier League’s tenth season. Ferdinand, who had been a prolific scorer at QPR and Newcastle, was in his fifth year with Spurs, but had failed to recapture his previous form. He scored ten goals for Tottenham across all competitions in the 2000-01 campaign, the first time he had cracked double digits for them.

To commemorate the landmark goal, the Premier League awarded Ferdinand £10,000 for donation to the charity of his choice. He selected two cancer charities, splitting the money evenly between them.

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We Might Be Wrong

In we might be wrong this week we have predicted a few selected matches heading into the winter break – The Premier League however will continue throughout the festive period. Here you have our predictions for next week’s matches. Send us yours, on the social networks, using #TheCornerScores.

Liverpool 1-2 Arsenal
Roma 1-1 Milan
Bordeaux 1-1 Lyon

Bloopers

Let’s move on to Bloopers, with the funniest videos found on the net. Watch how this player from an Italian regional team Riolo Terme celebrated his goal-scoring exploit. A truly smashing celebration. (Watch clip above)

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