The Champions League draw takes place on Friday morning with the play-off round featuring the likes of Newcastle, PSG, Real Madrid and Barcelona following an English-dominated league phase
The Champions League play-off draw will be made on Friday morning
The Champions League play-off draw will be made on Friday morning
The knockout phase play-off draw takes place on Friday morning with the 16 teams waiting to discover who they'll play - and who they could face in the last 16.
Eight teams - five of which are from the - will sit back with their feet up knowing they have dodged the need to play an extra two matches just to play in the last 16. The other teams to have qualified will have to go through a play-off, increasing the sense of jeopardy.
They are some stellar names who will be paying particular attention with holders PSG as well Spanish giants Real Madrid all having to negotiate the play-off round.
It by no means dampens hope of glory, after all had to go through this phase last year en route to claiming the trophy. But as Manchester City found out last year, you can draw a stellar opponent, which ended their European campaign as they were beaten by Real Madrid. Among the other heavyweight names involved in this morning's draw are Inter Milan, Juventus and Atletico Madrid.
For , , Chelsea, Tottenham and it is a case of sitting and waiting. Newcastle are the only English team featuring in Friday's draw as we discover the play-off round games.
Sit back at Mirror Football keeps you across it all ahead of the draw at 11am.
A reminder of who's through
So we've got the five English teams - Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and Man City.
German giants Bayern Munich are in the mix as are Spanish heavyweights Barcelona.
The surprising name is Sporting Lisbon, who finished seventh after winning five of their eight games.
The route to the final
We'll get more clarity on this later, but for now this is how it all looks.
UEFA's bracket shows how the Champions League knockouts currently looks
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Image:
UEFA)
How does it all work?
Well, this play-off round is largely determined by seedings.
Clubs are paired together based on where they finished at the end of the league phase to form seeded and unseeded pairs. The teams that finished ninth to 16th will be in the seeded pairs, while 17th to 24th will be in unseeded pairs.
The seeded teams are drawn against unseeded teams - so 15th and 16th will face 17th and 18th.
So take Newcastle, they finished in 11th and will be paired with 12th-placed PSG.
They are guaranteed to face either Monaco or Qarabag in the play-offs as they ended the league phase in 21st and 22nd respectively - but its just a matter of which one.
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We're counting down to 11am when the draw will take place in Switzerland, we'll keep you across everything until then!