Last Eight in Europe

Arsenal. OUT! Manchester United. OUT! Manchester City & Chelsea.OUT! (yes ages ago but OUT!)

Only the littlest of Englanders could fail to be excited by these scintillating ties. This is arguably set to be the most open Champions League for quite some time, with at least five teams in with a genuine chance of winning the competition. You could make a good case for any of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus or Real Madrid winning it, and equally there are reasons to doubt all of them, as I'm about to prove.

Barcelona: Have one of the best players in the world. Arguably still the best side in the world, but it doesn't take a lot to score against them - Milan took a pasting at the Camp Nou who themselves should have and could easily have scored twice.

Bayern Munich: On a mission after their moronic defeat in last season's final and 20 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga. They took Arsenal to the cleaners in the first leg and yet doubts remain about little drops in focus; allowing Arsenal to score three over the tie has to be a cause for concern.

Borussia Dortmund: Jurgen Klopp's freewheeling side are simply brilliant going forward - swoon at Mario Gotze and and Marco Reus - but their lack of experience compared to their rivals might hurt them.

Juventus: Clinical, cynical and in the habit of winning. Have ~~Nicklas Bendtner~~ Andrea Pirlo. But do they have that extra dash of class?

Real Madrid: Jose Mourinho. Cristiano Ronaldo. And question-marks against their ability to break down opponents who defend deep.

All in all, it's a pretty stellar cast and it's also good to see Galatasaray, Malaga and PSG in the hat. There's a wide spread of talent in Europe this season, and while all three sides are rank outsiders, they all have good players and good managers.

Post sourced by Jacob Steinberg (The Guardian) and pictures from Uefa.com edited by JCBA

The draw is as follows:

Jade Christopher Bentley Adams (@JCBA)

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