This has been an unusual season, with the break for the World Cup adding to a rare sense of unpredictability. This looks to be the most open Champions League in years, with the only side clearly in form, Napoli, never having previously gotten this far in the competition. It’s almost certainly too early to say the presence of three Italian sides in the quarterfinals represents the return of Serie A as a major power, 13 years since the last Italian winner, but that only one Spanish side got through the group is indicative of the financial difficulties La Liga sides are enduring. Wider trends are one thing, the specific ties another. After Friday’s draw, we assess the four quarterfinal ties.
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Real Madrid vs. Chelsea
Chelsea will still be wondering how it lost last season’s quarterfinal against Real Madrid. Even after conceding three goals in quick succession in the home leg, Chelsea had seemed to be on its way through after surging into a three-goal lead at the Bernabéu, only for a stunning Luka Modrić pass and a stunning Karim Benzema finish to tip the tie back toward the most successful team in European history.
Madrid, managed by the former Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti, may trail Barcelona by nine points in La Liga, but the past decade has offered plenty of warning that the usual rules don’t apply to Madrid in Europe. Its victory over Liverpool in the last 16 was, by recent standards, fairly straightforward, but again there was the strange mix of the brilliant—Vinícius Júnior’s finish in the first leg to begin the fightback, Modrić’s precise passing, the midfield play of Eduardo Camavinga—and the seemingly fortuitous—why does the ball always end up at Benzema’s feet? Why do so many goalkeepers make mistakes against it? Why did that first 20 minutes at Anfield when it was outpaced and outmuscled not lead to collapse? There is a calmness and self-belief about Madrid that goes a long way in European ties. The aging players who seemed to make Madrid vulnerable to pace last season are even older, but the likes of Vinícius and Camavinga are also a year older and beginning to dominate games regularly.
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For Chelsea, this season is all beginning to feel familiar. Its two previous Champions League successes have come after disappointing starts to the season that have led to a coach being sacked, and a sense of the players finding an inner drive in the biggest games that has somehow eluded them in the league. Three wins in a row, including the comeback against Borussia Dortmund, have eased the pressure on manager Graham Potter, but the truth is the underlying numbers weren’t bad before that; Chelsea just had a run in which it couldn’t score. That looks to have been resolved, in part by the return of Reece James and Ben Chilwell at wing-back and the re-adoption of a back three, and in part by the burgeoning relationship between João Félix and Kai Havertz.
PREDICTION: Narrow Real Madrid win.
Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich
Fifteen years after Sheikh Mansour bought the club, will this finally be the season Manchester City wins the Champions League? And 12 years from his second success at Barcelona, will this end Pep Guardiola’s long period of frustration in the competition? If it is, City will have to do it the hard way, potentially having to beat Bayern and Madrid just to reach the final.
Guardiola’s problem has always been that his demand for control, his paranoia about being counterattacked against, has led him to complicated tactical decisions that have often led to precisely the outcome he has been seeking to avoid. The signing of Erling Haaland, as his five goals in the second leg against RB Leipzig showed, has given City a lethal forward but paradoxically, his need for early passes may open it up to precisely the sort of counterattack Guardiola so fears.
This had been a trickier-than-usual domestic season for Bayern Munich, but that may be no bad thing in case-hardening it to the rigors of the latter stages of the Champions League. Doubts still remain about Julian Nagelsmann in the biggest European ties, but Bayern was comfortable in beating Paris Saint-Germain 3–0 on aggregate in the last 16. The absence of Manuel Neuer, who broke his leg skiing during the winter break, is a major blow, but Sadio Mané is on his way back from the Achilles injury that kept him out of the World Cup.
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City’s only previous meetings with Bayern have come in the group stage, six of them, shared three wins each, between 2011 and ’14, but Guardiola has been involved in six matches against German opposition at City, racking up 22 goals. This is a huge test for Nagelsmann, whose previous two meetings with Guardiola, with Hoffenheim, both ended in 2–1 defeats.
PREDICTION: Narrow Manchester City win.
Benfica vs. Inter Milan
It’s a repeat of the 1965 European Cup final, but perhaps more significant, it’s a meeting of representatives of Europe’s two quickest-rising leagues. The question is whether recent improvements in performance are deep-rooted or whether prime assets will simply be plucked away by the Premier League and, perhaps, La Liga. Even after the sale of Enzo Fernández to Chelsea, Benfica continues to look like distinct contenders. It may be 19 years since a Portuguese side last won the Champions League, but Benfica twice beat Juventus in the group stage and twice drew with Paris Saint-Germain. Gonçalo Ramos showed his abilities with his hat-trick for Portugal against Switzerland in the World Cup, João Mário is an experienced and intelligent midfielder, and World Cup winner Nicolás Otamendi completes a very gifted spine. Rafa Silva, meanwhile, having mystifyingly spent his entire career in Portugal, is a clever and creative presence from wide.
This is a first quarterfinal for Inter since 2011, which represents an achievement in itself. The Italian champion has not been as sharp this season as it was last, and trails Napoli by 18 points, but it showed its nous by taking four points off Barcelona on the group stage—although the defeats to Bayern perhaps showed the gap that still exists between Inter and the real elite. Goalkeeper André Onana has had a fine season since his move from Ajax, but with Romelu Lukaku’s struggling fitness and form, Inter is very reliant on Lautaro Martínez for goals. A possible Milan derby awaits in the semifinal.
PREDICTION: Narrow Benfica win.
AC Milan vs. Napoli
There will be at least one Italian side in the semifinal and, potentially, an all-Italian semifinal. This feels like a fixture from the glory era of Serie A—it was a 3–2 win away at Napoli in 1988 that effectively clinched the Scudetto for Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan—but the differences today are telling. There may be three Italian sides in the last eight for the first time in 16 years, but nobody believes Serie A represents the apogee of football as it did 35 years ago.
Yet even in the golden age of Diego Maradona, Napoli never reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League, so this already represents a major achievement. With its 18-point lead, meaning a Serie A title, only the third in the club’s history, is already almost confirmed, Napoli can rest players domestically when required; in fact, the biggest danger may be a slackening of intensity once the Scudetto is sealed. Victor Osimhen has developed into a superb all-round center forward, as his hat-trick against Eintracht Frankfurt in the last 16 demonstrated, while Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is arguably the most exciting creative presence in Europe at the moment.
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It would be premature to claim Milan is back, but this is its first quarterfinal since 2012—and the last time it got further was in winning the competition in ’07. The last-16 tie against Tottenham was a grim, attritional game, but it did at least show how Stefano Pioli’s side can frustrate opponents; albeit Spurs are a side prone to being frustrated. Napoli won 2–1 at Milan in the league; the second meeting of the sides comes April 2. Rafa Leao is a dynamic attacking presence from a sort of inside-forward role on the left, with Brahim Díaz, who got the only goal of the tie against Spurs, fulfilling a similar function from the right, operating behind the ageless Olivier Giroud.
PREDICTION: Comfortable Napoli win.
Semifinals Projection
Real Madrid vs. Manchester City
Benfica vs. Napoli
