Mbappé vs Haaland? These could be the rivals of PSG and Man City in Champions League

Last week ended the group stage of the Champions League 2023/24. It was the last time the most important club tournament in the world was played in this way, as from next year the format will change and there will no longer be groups of four teams each before the kock-out stages.

Now will come the most exciting stage of the competition. The best 16 teams in Europe will face each other in head-to-head duels and will be eliminated until the two finalists will compete for the title on June 1, 2024 at Wembley Stadium in London.

The draw for each of the eight matches will be made this Monday. The system will be very simple: the teams that finished first in each group will be in the same bowl, while in the other bowl will be all the teams that finished second. Each first place team will face a second place team, and teams that have already faced each other in the same group may be repeated. The first legs will be played on February 5 and 6, while the second legs will be played a week later.

The leaders are Bayern Munich, Arsenal FC, Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Barcelona; while the runners-up are Copenhagen, PSV Eindohoven, Napoli, Inter, Lazio, Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig and Porto.

There could be some very interesting matches

Among the teams that finished in second place, there are two that everyone wants to avoid: Inter, the last finalists, and Paris Saint-Germain, one of the most powerful clubs in the world. But one of the teams that finished first will have to face them. This means that in the round of 16 there could be, for example, duels like Kylian Mbappé vs Erling Haaland, or Lautaro Martinez vs Vinicius Junior.