CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Champions League round of 16: what games are on this week?
With Liverpool vs Real Madrid the headline clash, there are four more last-16 ties in the 2022/23 Champions League this week.
Liverpool vs Real Madrid: Tuesday, 3pm ET
Liverpool haven’t beaten Real Madrid since the sides last met in the last 16, back in 2008/09. Fourteen years ago, the Reds walloped Los Blancos 5-0 on aggregate, but the six meetings that have followed have yielded one draw and five wins for Madrid - most recently in last season’s Champions League final.
Liverpool endured a nightmare start to 2023, failing to win any of their first four Premier League games of the calendar year. However, Jürgen Klopp’s men are feeling rather better about themselves now, having posted two league victories on the spin and welcomed key defender Virgil van Dijk back from injury.
As for Madrid, their weekend LaLiga win over Osasuna was their fourth in a row in all competitions, but they’re struggling to retain their domestic title. After losing to both Villarreal and Real Mallorca so far since the turn of the year, Carlo Ancelotti’s men have allowed arch rivals Barcelona to open up an eight-point gap at the top of LaLiga.
Eintracht Frankfurt vs Napoli: Tuesday, 3pm ET
In the Germans’ first ever Champions League knockout tie, Eintracht Frankfurt host runaway Serie A leaders Napoli at Deutsche Bank Park.
Currently 15 points clear of second-placed Inter, Luciano Spalletti’s side have won seven in a row in the league and appear to be the most certain of certs to lift their first Italian championship since 1990. At the weekend, star forwards Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Victor Osimhen were on target in Serie A as the Partenopei beat Sassuolo 2-0.
Frankfurt may not be enjoying a campaign quite as spectacular as Napoli’s, but Oliver Glasner’s men, who sit sixth in the Bundesliga, aren’t in the worst form, either. Die Adlers’ league defeat to Köln two weeks ago was their first loss in all competitions since October, and they bounced back with a 2-0 top-flight victory over Werder Bremen on Saturday.
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RB Leipzig vs Manchester City: Wednesday, 3pm ET
Manchester City head into their last-16 tie with RB Leipzig as heavy favourites to progress, but the English champions visit a ground where they lost last season. Drawn against the Germans in the Champions League group stage in 2021/22, Pep Guardiola’s men went down to a 2-1 defeat at Red Bull Arena, Kyle Walker seeing red for City as goals by Dominik Szoboszlai and André Silva gave the hosts a 2-1 victory.
Leipzig beat Wolfsburg 3-0 in the Bundesliga on Saturday - and, although they lost to title-chasing Union Berlin the weekend before, that was their only defeat in their last 20 in all competitions, stretching back to the end of September. City, on the other hand, have lost three times this calendar year alone, and were held to a 1-1 Premier League draw by Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Inter Milan vs Porto: Wednesday, 3pm ET
Having qualified for the knockout stages at Barcelona’s expense, Inter Milan will now attempt to win a Champions League knockout tie for the first time since 2011 - just a year after they last lifted the trophy.
The Nerazzurri’s 3-1 Serie A win over Udinese on Saturday stretched their unbeaten run to five games - but that sequence looks thoroughly puny when compared to the streak that their opponents, Porto, are on.
The Portuguese champions haven’t lost any of their last 22 games - Sérgio Conceição’s side last suffered defeat in mid-October - and are on a 10-game winning run that has included eight clean sheets. That said, Porto are, like Inter, playing catch-up in their domestic league. The Dragões are five points adrift of leaders Benfica, who were the last side to beat them.
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