As most fans of European football already know, the round of 16 fixtures in the Champions League are each played between a group winner and a runner-up.
Therefore, on most occasions, the group winner is considered to be the favorite to advance for the quarter finals.
This season, the said theory has once again been justified, as the group winners ended up advancing to the next stage of the competition, whilst the runner-ups had been eliminated.
Well, this actually happened in seven out of the eight double headers of the round of 16.
The one group winner that failed to reach to final eight round, has unfortunately been Juventus.
Paris Saint Germain, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Real Madrid have all progressed to the next round of the competition at the expense of the group runner-ups who proved to be no-match for these top clubs.
In fact, it must be said that none of the seven teams mentioned above truly struggled to advance, as they all built on a healthy advantage gained in the first leg, and on most occasions ended up doing further damage to their opponents at the second meeting.
Therefore, these facts leave the Bianconeri in an awkward situation, after getting eliminated by Porto – who were initially perceived as a relatively easy draw.
Nonetheless the Portuguese champions ended up providing the sole surprise of the round, after reaching the quarter finals on the heels of a 4-4 result on aggregate.
The Dragons eliminated the Old Lady on away goals after some extra-time drama.
