“Champions League Draw: Real Madrid Faces Manchester City in the Playoff Round”
The draw for the Champions League playoff round, which took place on Friday in Nyon, Switzerland, has set up a high-stakes clash between reigning champions Real Madrid and English powerhouse Manchester City.
Both teams were forced into the playoff instead of securing direct qualification to the Round of 16 due to their failure to finish among the top eight teams. Real Madrid placed 11th, while City finished 22nd out of 36 teams, resulting in yet another showdown between the two for the fourth consecutive season.
The rest of the draw produced several intriguing matchups: Sporting Lisbon (Portugal) will face Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Club Brugge (Belgium) takes on Atalanta (Italy), Celtic (Scotland) meets Bayern Munich (Germany), and Juventus (Italy) clashes with PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands). Additionally, Feyenoord (Netherlands) is set to battle AC Milan (Italy), Monaco (France) will go up against Benfica (Portugal), and a highly anticipated all-French encounter will see Brest take on Paris Saint-Germain.
The playoff matches are scheduled to take place on February 11-12 and February 18-19.
