Champions’ League: waiting for round of 16
By Guillaume Mahot
The sixteen European clubs that will challenge each other in upcoming (and cold) February/March 2020 for the Champions’ League round of 16 are now all known. The group phase of the most prestigious football competition of clubs ended up this week, while the drawing lots will take place on next Monday.
The eight teams that led their respective groups and finished on top of the ranking are PSG, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Juventus Turin, Red Bull Leipzig, Valencia, Barcelona and Liverpool. They are supposed to have better chances of qualification than the second ones, who are Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur, Atalanta, Atlético Madrid, Lyon, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund and Napoli.
Western Europe is well represented with England (four teams), Spain (four teams), Germany (three teams), Italy (three teams) and France (two teams).
Beyond European considerations, Africa will have its word to say as well, starting the Reds of Liverpool whose goal is to be their own successor after the 2019 final won against Tottenham in last May. The African contingent living on the banks of the Mersey (Sadio Mané, Naby Keïta, Mohamed Salah, Joël Matip) will be the continent’s best representative in terms of quality for a team that practically did not change in relation to last season.
Still in England, Riyad Mahrez (City), Victor Wanyama and Serge Aurier (Tottenham) will also defend Algerian, Kenyan and Ivorian colors in this round of 16. Across the Channel, the PSG fellows Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (Cameroon) and Idrissa Gueye (Senegal) will come to know the Champions’ League 1/8 finals, a stage they barely experimented in their career. In Lyon, Africa will be honored by Bertrand Traoré (Burkina Faso), Maxwell Cornet (Ivory Coast) and Youssouf Koné (Mali).
In Spain, Lionel Messi’s teammate Moussa Wagué, who never plays for the Blaugrana, will be one more Senegalese player involved in this round of 16 though. The defensive midfielder from Valencia Geoffrey Kondogbia, who decided to play for the Central African Republic instead of France, will live a European spring, just like Ghanaian Thomas Partey with the Colchoneros.
In Germany, Morocco will be on the pitch thanks to Achraf Hakimi (Dortmund). In the meantime, Amadou Haidara (Mali/Leipzig) will play his first round of 16 of Champions’ League ever.
At last in Italy, youngsters Musa Barrow and Amad Traoré, playing for Atalanta, will represent Gambia and Ivory Coast. Napoli, who sacked Carlo Ancelotti in spite of the qualification to replace him by Gennaro Gattuso this week, will have two African representatives with Kalidou Koulibaly (Senegal) and Faouzi Ghoulam (Algeria).
Africa Global News Publication
