Real Madrid vs Man City again!

AFP | Paris

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Reigning champions Real Madrid will face 2023 winners Manchester City in the plum tie of the play-off round of this season’s Champions League, following yesterday’s draw.

It is the fourth year running in which the sides have been drawn against each other in a knockout tie, with Real emerging victorious in a penalty shoot-out in the quarter-finals last season.

City, who scraped through after finishing 22nd in the league phase in this first season of the new format for Europe’s elite club competition, will be at home in the first leg before going to Spain for the return.

Elsewhere, Celtic will face six-time European champions Bayern Munich, after the Scottish champions reached the knockout stage for the first time in 12 years.

Paris Saint-Germain will play surprise package Brest in an allFrench tie, while Juventus play PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord take on AC Milan in two ties between former winners of the competition.

Last season’s Europa League winners Atalanta, who finished one place outside the top eight which offered a direct path to the last 16, will face Club Brugge of Belgium.

Sporting of Portugal were drawn against last season’s runners-up Borussia Dortmund, while Monaco will take on Benfica having lost at home to the Portuguese club in the league phase.

The play-off ties will take place next month, with the eight winners going through to the last 16 along with the eight highest-placed sides from the league phase. Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa are the sides already through to the last 16.

Those teams finished in the top eight in the standings in the 36-team league phase -- the first season of the new format for the competition saw all competing clubs placed together in one giant pool, each playing eight games against eight different opponents.

The draw for the remainder of the competition is partly pre-determined, meaning that whoever emerges triumphant in the tie between City and Real knows they will play either Atletico Madrid or Bayer Leverkusen in the last 16.