Juventus will face Bayern Munich in the last 16 of the Champions League.
The draw ceremony has just been completed and Juve face arguably the toughest team in this years competition.
Bayern topped Group F securing wins against Arsenal, Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos while Juventus did the double against Man City and lost just one group game against Sevilla.
Arturo Vidal and Kingsley Coman will return to Turin just months after leaving the club to join the German champions.
The first leg of the ties will take place on February 16/17 and 23/24, with the return legs due for March 8/9 and 15/16.
Juventus director Pavel Nevded was in Nyon for the draw and gave his thoughts on facing Bayern.
“I’ve had better days,” he told Premium Sport.
“The group was already difficult, the team did well to get through it without great difficulty.
“Maybe we were hoping for better luck today but this means that we have to suffer once again.
“I really like the team in Europe, we’re confident of playing two good matches.
“We have improved a lot to be competitive in Europe, but with Bayern it will be very difficult.
“No one is unbeatable, we must think like this.
“Dybala? Marotta and Paratici have worked perfectly. We are not weaker than last year: we lost some champions but we set up a team that can play these games in Europe.
“All we need is a bit of maturity andnexperience, but these are the matches where we will acquire that.
“We’ve found certainty and security with this formation, but that doesn’t mean that later we won’t make changes with players in better form or who have recovered.
“It doesn’t depend on the formation, we talk too much about this.”
Confirmed fixture dates:
First legs:
16 February: Paris v Chelsea, Benfica v Zenit
17 February: Gent v Wolfsburg, Roma v Real Madrid
23 February: Arsenal v Barcelona, Juventus v Bayern
24 February: PSV v Atlético, Dynamo Kyiv v Manchester City
Second legs:
8 March: Wolfsburg v Gent, Real Madrid v Roma
9 March: Chelsea v Paris, Zenit v Benfica
15 March: Atlético V PSV, Manchester City v Dyanmo Kyiv
16 March: Barcelona v Arsenal, Bayern v Juventus
Champions League last 16 draw
Gent vs Wolfsburg
Roma vs Real Madrid
Paris Saint-Germain vs Chelsea
Arsenal vs Barcelona
Juventus vs Bayern Munich
PSV vs Atletico Madrid
Benfica vs Zenit
Dynamo Kiev vs Manchester City
Image from Sport Extra
[socialpoll id=”2316099″]
bayern it is then. Pep v Allegri. Chiellini and Bonucci v Lewa, Marchisio and Pogba v ….well, that midfield of theirs !
Not impossible to beat them, not impossible at all. We have Allegri now and he has outthought the best of them. The team is strong, perhaps a reinforcement or two in Jan?
this will sound incredibly petty and i sound stupid for saying it….but i want to knock them out to shut Vidal up. that guy said some classless things about Madama after he left. I don;t care what happens after….i just want to beat Bayern more than anything
I completely agree.. I really want to beat them to prove Vidal wrong. it will be tough but super excited!
I hear you. We need to beat Vidal and Bayern and i believe we can do it if we play the best we can. But its going to be very very difficult. They are a smooth running machine that is very hard to stop. We need to be there 100% in both matches. And if we beat them we should be able to go all the way.
Not petty in the slightest, comrade…Reasonable I would say! Coman has comported himself in a decent fashion, from what I have read, yet Vidal…has perhaps stepped into the territory of disrespect for the team where he made his name as a player of world class standard.
I am more confident than many and hope that the piece I wrote will help to not just calm some nerves but also, more importantly, remind people of our quality.
The fact remains that we have no idea how strong this Juve side could be. Its already looking like returning to domestic dominance and we are well off our full stride. Who is to say that by February, we will not be stronger still? I believe we will be. And in two games, anything can happen.
Perhaps when we went through Del Neri and Ferarra I would have been worried of such a fixture, but not now. You don’t win four domestic titles on the spin and reach a champions league final by luck alone…
….and that is quite possibly the strongest point to make here, regardless of the weak and tired arguments of Serie A being ‘past it’ and ‘a one team league’ etc etc. This team has overcome great challenges and tough opposition to go a season unbeaten AND to be within a whisker of winning 4 trophies within a season – The new components are starting to click into place – the gears are beginning to turn and the machine is gather momentum. Granted, we’ve had to replace parts due to damages, but this hulking black and white behemoth is lurching forward one step at a time.
Plenty of reason for optimism, rightly outlined in your fantastic article which i’ve just had the pleasure of posting !
Spot on, comrade…In all your considerations. And I am with you…it would bring me great joy to see Vidal run through by Big Sami. Different story with the kid Coman. A wiser head on younger shoulders. And I wish him well, in every game other than the two against Juve…where I hope he fails miserably, supplies his worst performance of the season.
….and Vidal….i can;t explain the anger that comes over me when i hear player direspecting madama……especially ex-players, although those are few and far between. Something about his comments and the way he referred to us as a stepping stone of sorts to bigger and better things…..I’ll say no more. But he must be silenced. He must.
Four interesting, exciting games, and four nobody will watch except the fans of each team.
Would have been better to start against a weaker team, but if we want to win it, we have to beat all of them anyway.
Well, goodbye Champions League, it was a good run this season
Yay for optimism :p
Sorry for ruining the dream :p
And goodbye for Roma as well.. Serie A points will have to be gained in the EL this season
Well CL is over for us this year. There needs to be a better system. I’ve always gotten a feeling that this is rigged, and now that FIFA is under investigation, I wouldn’t put it past them to mark the balls in a way we can’t see on TV. Spain always gets at least 1 favorable draw. And there are always at least 2 games that are BS to ensure some small market team goes through to give the idea that anyone can make it.
Italian teams are fucked in the Europa League too… Tough draws not to mention the two italian teams pitted against Madrid and Bayern in CL.
Yet Wolfsburg is playing Gent and City is playing Kiev.
PSG gets burned again having to play against a big team again early on in the competition.
Don;t understand the pessimism – i know Bayern are different to Dortmund and Real, but we overcame both those teams last season.
If we don’t play defensively in the first leg, we have a chance. They will push for a goal but if we can take a 1-0 victory to Germany, we stand a chance. A shame the first leg is in Turin but we have to hope. That team made the final last season and even without Vidal and Pirlo and Tevez, we can make an impact.
I think Bayern does have the upper hand in this, but I agree, it’s far from over. They have an outstanding attacking force in Europe, second best to Barca in my opinion. Its going to be tough to deny them away.
Bayern is the best team there is, only Barcelona is of the same level.
And cmon you dont actually expect us to not play defensively, do you? And win 0-1 in the Allianz Arena?
We only stand a chance if we have a good-great January market with players who settle in really fast and if the team as a whole is in bloody great form when we meet Bayern.
Realistically speaking, our chances of beating Bayern in 2 legs is close to zero.
Not being pessimistic, just realistic
i can udnerstand that, but if we are already giving in then theres no point in even playing ! Bayern are beatable, if we play on the counter and quickly. I have faith in this team. They play well against the big teams
The team has to give their all of course and go for it, but I as fan dont have to xD
I expect 2 losses so it can only be better than expected
Saying “goodbye CL” right after the draw is pessimistic. I mean sure, they have a better squad, but anything can happen until we face them. They can lose all their important players due to injuries, or whatever.
We are also better than Sassuolo, yet we still lost against them. At least wait until the first match is over. 😛
In one game maybe we could beat Bayern, football is football and anything can happen.
Beating them over 2 games cancels out a lot of little mistakes, making the better team more likely to win it.
Bayern has a far superior attack, a better midfield, maybe slightly less defense and lets say the goalies are equals.
We cant count on Bayern having a lot of injuries or something undermining their form or morale out of the blue sky. I would go so far to say even a damaged Bayern would beat a full strength Juve.
Maybe i am pessimistic, but I see no cause for optimism. I call it being realistic, the chance of progressing is slim at best.
If we play it perfect over 180 minutes and we can capitalise on a Bayern mistake we can win. Thats a lot of “ifs” to depend on.
Long story short, I am pretty damn sure we can call An end to our CL campaign after the Bayern matchup.
Sadly enough though, I too would like to see Vidal shut up after his comments about Juve.
I understand, but still, I won’t give it to Bayern just yet. We also don’t have to beat them twice, we don’t have to play better football either. Only the summed up results count. I think if our defence doesn’t make mistakes we can do it. It won’t be easy or particularly nice, but it’s not hopeless.
I know, two draws or something would be enough, i didnt mean we need 2 wins.
I remember the last encounter against Bayern. Especially in Munich. 30 seconds in the game, Alaba shoots and Buffon completely miscalculates it. 1-0. Thats how little Bayern needs to score
Yes, that was shit, but we have better strikers now, than that. Our team can score easily too. Besides, (although I hate to admit it) Allegri seems to be doing okay in cups. I think he can prepare a team for the rematch better than Conte could back then.
If the team comes together we would have a stronger team than back then, but at the moment i just dont give Juve any chance to beat Bayern in 180 mins
I don’t have any more to support my argument, so I’ll just boo at you! 😛
BOOOO!
XD “BOO was super effective! belgian fainted!”
Prepare for trouble!
And make it double!
To protect the world from devastation!
To unite the peoples from our nation!
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
I want in, i’ve missed this..
Not you, psyduck!
Shouldn’t that be Wobbuffet? :p
What is that xp i didnt get further than the original Pokemon xp
https://www.bogleech.com/pokemon/wobbuffet.png
This thing. I also watched the original pokemon only but i saw him in some random episodes after that. I think Psyduck was with Ash.
No it was with Misty xP team rocket had that bell-shaped plant, whatever the name was again, that kept swallowing James
Oh right haha.
I refuse to continue, because you’ve messed it up. 😛
Within* you goddamn nazi xP
Holy shit italian teams in EL are just as fucked…
Napoli vs Villareal
Lazio vs Galatasaray
Fiorentina vs Tottenham
And then we against Bayern and Roma against Madrid…
Damn I had hoped at least the EL teams would have had a real chance to progress, we all will have to fight our ass off to survive
england got lucky with city and MU draw so the italians are gonna have to step it up if we want that 4th spot back. The only problem is that Napoli and Fiore will be at the top of the table fighting for a top 3 spot so hopefully they don’t prioritize serie A over EL too much…
It’s because of UEFA bias against Italy .. They don’t want Italy to overtake England in the co-efficients.
I dont deny this biased against Italy… My auestion is: why is there one in the first place? In general, it seems the average asshole football fan is against anything italian related.
UEFA trying to stop Italy gaining in the coefficient rankings and catching England. Juve and Roma draw Madrid and Bayern and the Europa League draws are brutal too.. What a joke.
Funny thing is that the draw was done by 2 Italians too.
It’s either you love Italy or you hate them. There’s a jealousy factor too, many are just jealous .. What can you do?
+5million haha
after we drop the 2011 season from the coefficient we will be ahead of England. So try to stay afloat this year and next year the 4th spot will become ours. Can’t cage the beast forever
I won’t be quick to claim some form of bias in organisational structures. In media, yes. But I’d like us to break from this mentality.
Honestly, it works that way within Italy too. Other teams feel that games go in favour of Juve, the media supports Juve (eg. Juve is going for Bernareschi, as if Fiorentina have no say), and that is why teams always say that refs and FIGC (hah!) are biased in our favour. We must understand that such is a trait of winners. Ever played a game online and be accused as a hacker? That’s just one game, imagine one century of success lol. I’d rather blame on mistakes and inconsistencies, rather than formulate some manner of structural conspiracy theory (other clubs will say that’s rich coming from Juventus).
Never forget, lo stile Juve. To engage in the banter of lesser teams is a trait of…lesser teams.
I’m well aware of our poor start to the season and the mega strength of the Germs…yet equally aware of our history, huge wealth of experience and massive potential to improve further this season. It is understandable to find less confidence in beating Bayern than perhaps…any other side but Barca. Yet it is a leap too far into an abyss of feckless despondency to assume we are maimed and bloody, crawling defeated from the battle-field, before the fight has even begun…
you do have a way with words, sir
I’m not gonna predict anything. It’s a very tough draw, but i have faith in our guys. Something i’m gonna have untill the final whistle of the 2nd match. (Unless we lose the first match 0-8).
I was hoping for a Bayern – Barca final though, that would be an amazing final, but now i’m gonna have to scratch that.
I shared my thoughts in another forum, so here it is:
Amidst all the doomsday rhetoric, I will share my thoughts on how it is possible to beat Bayern.
1) Most crucial aspect, is that our team must have a healthy Dybala, Marchisio, Pogba, Bonucci, Buffon, Sandro (not sure if he’ll get the nod, but current skillset and showing would be devastating).
2) We need Morata to find his stride, Sturaro to improve his game, Barza, Litch, Pereyra, Khedira, Chiellini, to be available for tactical reasons, and form the second layer of our core team. Point 1 are the absolute gamebreakers if they don’t exist; our chances are significantly dimmer if any of them are unavailable.
3) Resolve. Compared to players whom I do love, but Quags, Matri, Vucinic, Pepe, Giaka, those are relics coming from small yet promising strides. They know the meaning of losing, and would inherently display fear against larger sides. Our current crop features champions who relish match-ups like this, with the mentality that it’s as probable to win than to lose, possibly with Bayern as an EQUAL team. Evra from Man U who felt it was normal to reach out of the group stage and make deep runs into CL. Mandzukic from Bayern that has the aura of invincibility which our fanbase is reacting to (honestly without Calciopoli, there’s completely ZERO doubt of our name being mentioned in the same breath). Morata from Real who doesn’t even WANT to keep a runner-up medal. Buffon/Marchisio/Bonucci/Chiellini who embody both the Bianconero and Azzuri. These players play with an arrogance of winners, which is extremely important in the psychological battle tainted with the uneven media bias towards non-Italian sides. Was Marchisio fazed against Ronaldo? Did BBC flinch against Aguero? If we play with the mentality that we are less of a team than they are, half the battle is already lost. Compared to Asamoah and Pepe who looked uncomfortable on the big stage and Conte waving around the underdog card, we need to play like we belong.
I’d like to round it up by saying that in the past 5 years at least, from recent memory, I have never seen Juventus outclassed in any match when they bring their A game, EXCEPT against Barcelona in the final. Honestly, it’s always a case of Juventus looking disorganised when we lose or grind out wins. But brilliance by Barca, alongside some refereeing decisions I don’t agree with, sealed the deal for Barcelona. But that’s the only team I’ve seen that made us look that way when we were firing up all cylinders. If we don’t screw up on our end, I’m absolutely comfortable in the prowess of our team.
That is all! Fino alla fine Juventus!
I wouldn’t say we were outclassed by Barca. We looked like we were in control after equalizing. Once we let in that 2nd goal we had to go all out which resulted in the 3rd goal. I don’t think the final scoreline did the game justice.
Definitely true. Those goals came against the run of play. The point is, those were moments we had no answer to, and I can’t recall other instances where our A game was matched by another’s A game. Hence, we shouldn’t be so intimidated by Bayern!
We have to believe that we can, and we must. Those words were more to rally around our belief in fino alla fine.
This is the attitude we need. I feel confident that our veterans and Max will relay the same message that we can’t be intimidated and that Bayern can be beat. They lost to porto and shaktar on the road along with Arsenal this year. They’re not invincible but it will take our best performance and a little luck never hurt either!
I hope our players dont have the same mentality as her fans… Not taking shots at all, but this sport is based off of more than what is written on paper. We arent a 2nd tier club, we re up there with the big boys. Just because we may not have names that dazzle or sparkle like those amongst the baverian giants, doesnt mean we re far inferior to them. The only thing preventing us from being up there with Barca and or Bayern is… US.
It is true that Bayern are always intimidating, but the way i see it is: its 11 men vs 11 men. Whomever comes out victorious comes out because they were the better of the two groups. F*ck all preconceieved ideals of whos better.
When that whistle blows, i expect no fear; i expect no doubt. If we lose, the reason behind it being is not because they had more stars or because they had more money. Its because we allowed that thought to cross into our concious mindset and that alone gave us a reason to lose.
I dont know about all of you, but i started supporting this club because they gave me a reason to win, not the other way around. Because in the end, my hopes were not to simply progress past the round of 16, it was to win because thats what those stripes stand for. VICTORY.
Yeah, last time we met Barca we lost 3-1. Last time Bayern 4-0.
Juve is a great team and belongs in the CL, no doubt about it. But this juve isnt as strong as the Juve that went to the final last year. And Bayern only got stronger, not in the least by adding OUR midfield warrior to their ranks.
Call it whatever you like to call it, I don’t expect to see Bayern defeated.
Hopefully I am wrong, we will have to wait and see how we and Bayern are in February
Tevez was nonexistent in the final and vidal minus the RM tie was absent most of the year as well. Pirlo was past his prime and many were calling for him to not play. Mandzu Dybala and Morata gives us a good selection to choose from. They posses different atributes that will keep the opposition guessing. The only thing that worries me is the lack of a standard formation. Coming into the year I thought we would stick with a 4312 but now we seem to lack a true TQ since pereyra is hurt and hernanes is not a player i feel comfortable with on the pitch (yet at least). That may force Allegri to play with a 352/zona mista which sketches me out in Europe since the big guns play with fantastic wingers. Can’t wait to see how our team looks in two months. I am so ready for this challenge that hopefully will be an epic clash of titans that goes down in the history books (with Juve coming out on top of course)
The 4-0 score line was over 2 legs against Bayern.
I know, twice 2-0
Well to be fair, that 4-0 thumpong was ages ago :p
And that loss to barca was a loss to one of the greatest Barca teams ever; we stood toe to toe to them. I dont think any other team wouldve done that in a cl final. Actually come out and try to attack barca while conceding minimal goals as possible. Look at madrid recently :p and that 3rd goal was a last minute counter attack where we committed everyone forward.
Agreed on both points, we could have beaten barca with luck on our side.
The scoreline was very flattering for Barca. But this is a different Juve, even though that game was only 6months ago
I whole heartifly agreed. Its a more “immature” Juve. But to doubt this Juve is wrong imo. I feel people are more pessimistic about this draw because we dont have two big names anymore. Yea Pirlo is a nothing short of an icon all around Italy, but lets not lie to ourselves. His last year was one to forget. Lets just forget his name in general and look at how he performed. He was sluggish and a bit too non-chalant at times and couldve cost us dearly on SEVERAL occasions, but fortuantrly enough for him, he had grace of the gods at his whim.
Vidal too comes to mind, but in honesty, Marchisio makes the bigger impact. Vidal is an obvious Fan fave, but people need to realize that what Marchisio does, is phenomenal. Vidal was an immense tackler and his ability in front of the final third was top drawer, but Marchisios ability to silently mols a team together has to be recognized sooner or later. Marchisios name was finally given a bit of the credit that he deserves last year and look at how far we made it… And look how strong our strides have become since the return of Il Principino.
Well said. Sadly our players have shown that fear in the Champions League alot of times already, the terrible passes they gave, the nerves they show against the big teams, it’s something we never saw in the Serie A. They have gained experience from the matches against Bayern 2 years ago and now against Madrid and Barca last year, i think alot depends on how Dybala feels about Bayern. Can he stay calm and finish our chances? Can he make some kind statement like Tevez did in the return leg against Dortmund. That early goal saying ”you got an away goal in Turin, but you’re never gonna get back into this match now”. I’m really hoping for stuff like that from him.