After a fun first knockout round, the round of 16 looks much tougher and should bring some interesting matches.
The next round of the Europa League has been drawn, and it is chock full of fascinating ties for the last 16 teams.
Title favorites Wolfsburg will face off with Inter Milan after seeing off a spirited Sporting Lisbon side that had stepped down from the Champions League. For their part, Inter saw off Celtic with a 1-0 win at the San Siro after an incredible 3-3 showdown in Scotland. The Italians will be looking to use having the second leg at home to their advantage, but Wolfsburg are more than capable of building a significant advantage in the first leg in Germany
Elsewhere, the lone remaining English side Everton have a tricky draw to get through. Dynamo Kiev may not be the best of sides left in the Europa League, but they're plenty good and many teams find playing in Ukraine difficult. That will especially be true against Kiev after their match against Guingamp in the round of 32 was suspended briefly when fans spilled out of the stand, fighting with stewards, security and each other.
Italy was proud of the accomplishment of all five of their Europa League representatives making it through the last round, but that won't be so easy an accomplishment this time. Not only are Inter paired with a favorite of the competition, Torino have been "rewarded" for their impressive win over Athletic Bilbao with a trip to face Zenit St. Petersburg, a massively talented squad that just got finished tearing apart PSV, who had been a favorite to make a deep run in the competition.
Napoli have a winnable, if fairly difficult, tie with Dynamo Moscow to contend with, and only one of Fiorentina and Roma will advance after being drawn with each other. Spain faces the same fate, as their two remaining sides will face off, with only one of Villarreal and Sevilla surviving to the next round.
The first leg of these ties is March 11, and the second March 18.
Full draw results
Everton v Dynamo Kiev
Dnipro v Ajax
Zenit St Petersburg v Torino
Wolfsburg v Inter Milan
Villarreal v Sevilla
Napoli v Dynamo Moscow
Club Brugge v Besiktas
Fiorentina v AS Roma
from SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1LQz9vf
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