Barca and Real lie in wait for Chelsea

THE 50th season of European club competition reaches a defining moment tomorrow when the draw for the first knockout stage of the Champions League takes place at UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

Whether the old trophy, which has been won nine times by Real Madrid and six times by AC Milan, will be heading back to old haunts or new, will not be known for another five months.

However, tomorrow’s pairings will give an indication of where it might be heading after the final in Istanbul on May 25 with punters all over Europe increasingly placing their bets on Chelsea or Barcelona.

The London club are one of four Premier League teams involved in the draw for the last 16, the first time four English clubs have been involved at this stage. Although they lost their unbeaten Group H record when they went down 2-1 to Porto last week, their place in the knockout phase had been secured a month earlier and Jose Mourinho remains on course to become the first coach to win the competition with different teams in successive seasons.

Unluckily for Chelsea, who won Group H with ease, they could be drawn to play either Barcelona or Real Madrid, both ties that would severely test the London club’s ambitions of crowning their centenary season as English and European champions. The nature of the draw means that none of the eight group winners can face each other yet - they have to be drawn against teams who finished second in their groups. They cannot be drawn against teams from their own country or a qualifier from their group.

Barcelona, who have shown imperious form in Spain where they have lost just once in 15 matches, finished second in Group F, while Real Madrid finished second in Group B.

Real’s England skipper David Beckham said he would love to face an English team - and if he doesn’t get Chelsea, it could always be Arsenal, although Real cannot be paired with his old club Manchester United.

The Gunners topped their group after a 5-1 win over Rosenborg Trondheim last week, but, given their frailty when it comes to big European ties, Arsene Wenger’s men would probably prefer to face Porto, Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen.

AC Milan, the current leaders of Serie A with just one defeat in their opening 15 league matches, have impressed this season in attack where newly-crowned European Footballer of the Year Andrei Shevchenko has been in outstanding form.

Carlo Ancelotti’s men could face Porto but they could also renew their old rivalry with Real or face former champions Liverpool or Bayern Munich.

Last week Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said the new Champions League is “the perfect system, the best we’ve ever had.”

Rummenigge said the format, without a second group phase, had proved its worth. “We had the vision of a European league, that was a mistake.”

Rummenigge’s players though might be thinking otherwise at the moment as they will draw either Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan, AS Monaco or Olympiqye Lyon.

There is no doubt that by scrapping the second group stage last season, UEFA have added excitement to the competition, reflected in rising interest from sponsors and television audiences and increased incomes for clubs.

It will also mean that tomorrow’s draw will be one of the most eagerly awaited events of the season with a series of heavyweight clashes in prospect when the competition resumes with the first legs on February 22-23.