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PSG lands Barcelona, Madrid derby rematch in UCL quarterfinal draw

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By IVES GALARCEP

The UEFA Champions League quarterfinal draw set up a pair of juicy match ups involving Spanish giants, and a pair of clashes between teams that won’t be too upset with Friday’s quarterfinal draw.

FC Barcelona will take on Paris St. Germain in a rematch of one of the group stage’s best pairings, while Real Madrid will meet Atletico Madrid in a rematch of last year’s UEFA Champions League final.

The draw, held on Friday, set up a comfortable path for underdogs AS Monaco and Juventus, who will meet each other. FC Porto takes on Bayern Munich in the remaining quarterfinal matchup.

Barcelona and PSG will meet again after clashing in the group stage and splitting their meetings.

The first legs are scheduled to be played on April 14-15, with the return legs scheduled for April 21-22. This year’s final is scheduled for June 6 in Berlin.

What do you think of the draw? Excited to see Barcelona-PSG again? Think PSG can win the series without Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the first leg? Who do you see winning the Madrid derby tie?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I see people questioning the strength of the EPL now that all EPL teams have been eliminated. I think that the EPL fields some very good sides, and would be more competitive if they took a winter break like they do in La Liga, instead of cramming in even more fixtures during the holidays, and then the FA Cup, and League Cup matches as well. I think that the good teams, and players in the EPL suffer from severe fatigue by this time of the season, and are not as competitive as we’d like to see them. I’m not saying this to take away from the quality of players in Spain, and Italy, or Munich.

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  2. I’m confused… How can both Juve and Monaco have a comfortable path because they are playing each other? That’s gonna be uncomfortable to whoever loses…

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    • Yeah not sure what he means by that. Juve is being really under looked. They dismantled a Dortmund squad that won their UCL group with ease and haven’t been blown out that badly in years. Juve is a dark horse to make it to the finals, especially with Tevez and Pogba in top form. Their new found athletic prowess combined this campaign, combined with their traditional Italian savvy make them a very dangerous squad and hardly a cake walk for Monaco.

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    • It is all relative. There are no weak teams left at this stage, but Porto and PSG have much tougher match ups. Would you have a better chance of beating Juve/Monaco or Bayern/Barca?

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    • Here’s what it means:

      1. Juve and Monaco would both have been considered underdogs to make the sermi-finals before the draw, as neither are considered to be one of the four best remaining teams.

      2. They’re paired with each other, which means that one of them *must* make the semi-finals;

      3. So an underdog is guaranteed to make the semi-finals.

      Personally, I think folks are sleeping on Juve — I think they’re playing pretty well right now — but that’s the line of thinking people are taking.

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  3. So we have no English teams in the quarter finals of the Champions league. Anyone cares to make an argument now that the EPL is the strongest league in the world? Can’t wait to hear the excuses.

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    • I think there is a difference between having the best league in the world and having the best top teams in the world. When I think of the best league in the world I think of the most competitive from top to bottom. Though, even then, England might not have the best league in the world. But, just because a league might have a few of the very best teams in the world doesn’t mean the league as a whole is a great league.

      Scotland in the 60s for example. Not a great league even back then, but had a couple excellent teams.

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      • No teams left in the Champions or Europa League. The so called “best league” had their teams eliminated from the power house league that is Ligue 1 (Arsenal, Chelsea) and the Ukrainian League (Everton). Even the Italian League has teams in both competitions remaining and it is usually written off as a declining league. People mention the Bundesliga as a 1 team league but I doubt it would be much different in the EPL if you traded Bayern for either Chelsea or Man City, which has been basically a one team league since early January.

        Also the bottom of La Liga would run a passing clinic against the QPR, Burnely, and Leichester’s of the EPL. Sure the top 3 in La Liga blowout teams near the bottom of that league, but we’ve seen Barcelona and Madrid blowout the EPL’s best in recent seasons.

        The EPL may be entertaining but I would say that’s due to the parity of the league rather than the quality of the league as a whole.

    • La Liga has been very strong for a number of years. While most fans look at the Champions league, if you look at the Europa League results, the second tier Spanish clubs have been winning that competition too.

      I saw a coach – maybe even Pelligrini describing the difference in the leagues. He said in the EPL the teams fight until the end of the 90 minutes. In La Liga, Real or Barcelona have usually killed off the game at the 60 minute mark and the last 30 minutes are simply playing out the clock.

      Its an interesting question. A sidebar: is the Serie A, who has been dropping in quality over the last few years, suddenly better than the EPL because it has more teams still in European competitions this year?

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      • Italian Seria A is interesting; the league is still dodged by stadia problems, scandals, major financial issues (see Parma), but things may be picking up.

        Roma will be building a new, more compact stadium, following in Juventus footsteps…

        See link below with the country rankings. After this season, the Premier League will be dropping to third place after the Bundesliga, and the Italian league will be narrowing the gap with 3 teams left in Europe, as England’s 2010-2011 massive 18+ points will be wiped out…

        http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2015.html

      • Re Serie A, I think it is too early to tell if they have turned the corner on relatively poor performances in recent years. Tactically, their teams are more sophisticated than EPL teams and their teams did better this year in European competitions, but that’s not enough to draw a conclusion that Serie A is stronger than EPL. If they outperform EPL teams in European competitions for the next couple of years (as La Liga and Bundesliga teams did in recent years), we will be able to draw some conclusions.

    • Sure. La Liga has only 2-3 great teams. The EPL beats up on themselves, plus they have too many cup competitions. Just an theory — I actually prefer La Liga.

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      • The frequent suggestion that La Liga is only really good at the top of the table is contradicted by the reality of the Europa League. When you take the second tier of the big European leagues — the teams not at the top of each table — and put them in a league together — the Europa League — what happens? Well, what’s happened over the last decade or so is that Spanish teams have won more than everyone else combined. In some of those Europa league finals, *both* teams were from Spain. So yeah, the best teams from Spain have been doing better than the best teams from other European countries over the last decade; but more telling is that the teams 3-6 in the tables or so from Spain have been outplaying their counterparts in other European countries as well.

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