90min

X reacts to Champions League round of 16 draw

  • Arsenal have been drawn against Porto and Man City have drawn Copenhagen
  • Barcelona vs Napoli was the pick of the ties drawn
  • How social media reacted to the draw

By Jack Gallagher

The draw is in
The draw is in / FABRICE COFFRINI/GettyImages
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For the last time ever in this current format, a Champions League round of 16 draw took place on Monday 18 December, 2023.

While we certainly won't miss the unnecessary pre-amble, the ex-pros struggling to say team names, or the ex-pros struggling to open the little star-covered balls to reveal the drawn team (we perhaps will miss that actually), what we will miss is the excitement of seeing two top sides being drawn against one another - knowing that we're going to witness two legs of majestic football at the start of new year.

This year, as it always has, the round of 16 draw has thrown up some cracking ties.

Here's how fans reacted to the draw on X:

Arsenal

Having waltzed through their group relatively unscathed, Arsenal were rewarded with a last 16 tie against Portuguese outfit Porto.

And it's fair to say that Gunners fans were pretty pleased with the draw...

Barcelona

While Arsenal fans were thrilled with their draw, Barca fans were less so with theirs.

La Blaugrana, struggling to find any sort of form in recent weeks, have been drawn against one of the better teams in the runners-up pot, Napoli.

While Barca are enduring a woeful run of form, some fans were quite optimistic of making light work of the Serie A title-holders...

Some fans were also just pleased to be in the draw at all, having not seen Barcelona at this stage in the Champions League in quite a while.

Manchester City

Man City being drawn against the 'easiest' teams in the Champions League is well known meme on social media at this stage, and this season's draw did little to prove it wrong.

As predicted by many, the treble winners are set to meet a team who will be playing in the Champions League knockout rounds for the first time in their history in the last 16 - Copenhagen.

X's response? 'Go figure'.

Paris Saint-Germain

Along with Manchester City, PSG were perhaps the happiest of the the last 16 sides with their draw.

Despite only finishing as their group's runners-up, the Ligue 1 champions managed to avoid all of the big hitters left in the competition; instead being drawn against Real Sociedad.

While some X users felt that it was an easy tie, others (more informed ones) made the point that Sociedad's tactical set-up has the capacity to hurt PSG...

Real Madrid

John Terry's pick to win the Champions League this season, Real Madrid are set to meet Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig in the round of 16.

Madrid fans are, expectedly, very confident of a win over Leipzig, with roughly 100,000,000 X users all having the same reaction to the draw.

'Easy':

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