Zlatan Ibrahimovic will face his former club Manchester United in the last-16 of the Europa League after Milan were drawn against the Red Devils in Friday’s draw.
Ibrahimovic won the Europa League with United back in 2017 and the veteran is still going strong in Italy.
Arsenal are down to play Olympiacos – the team who knocked them out of this competition at the last-32 stage a year ago.
Tottenham fly to Croatia in the first leg to face Dynamo Zagreb, while Rangers will go head-to-head with Slavia Prague over the two ties next month.
Slavia beat Leicester 2-0 on Thursday night to book their place in the last-16 and restricted the Premier League high-flyers to just a handful of chances over two legs.
No fans will be permitted into any of the British ties as the UK continues to implement social distancing to combat the coronavirus.
And there is the possibility that some matches could be moved to different venues – as was the case with both of Arsenal’s last-32 legs against Benfica this month – should travel restrictions in certain countries be in place.
Europa League draw: Full fixture list for last-16 ties
- Ajax vs Young Boys
- Dynamo Kiev vs Villarreal
- Roma vs Shakhtar Donetsk
- Olympiacos vs Arsenal
- Dynamo Zagreb vs Tottenham
- Manchester United vs Milan
- Slavia Prague vs Rangers
- Granada vs Molde
Manchester United
Ibrahimovic will be warmly received back at Old Trafford when his Milan side rock-up in Manchester – assuming travel restrictions don’t force the tie to be moved to a neutral venue.
The Swede has cult status in the red half of Manchester after an impactful two years at the club, where he won both the Europa League and League Cup.
He left the club for LA Galaxy in 2018 and last year moved back to Europe to join another former side in Milan. This season Ibrahimovic has scored 14 goals in Serie A but just once in Europe.
It was a smooth ride into the last-16 for Manchester United after they did the hard part of their two-legged round-of-32 encounter with Real Sociedad in the first encounter last week.
United won that tie in Spain 4-0 thanks to two goals from Bruno Fernandes and strikes via Marcus Rashford and Daniel James. Thursday saw them grind out a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford to safely progress, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer naming a partially-changed XI.
“We are a group that are very tight together,” the boss said. “You come in, you work every day, you have a few setbacks and knocks.
“We want to go further but when you have failed before you want to do better. The culture is really improving and we’ve got some fantastic players and fantastic coaches.”
Arsenal
The Gunners had a less easy time of it than United in their two-legged affair with Benfica over the past week. Both ties were played on natural grounds but away goals still counted.
It meant that Arsenal were on the verge of crashing out of the tournament 3-3 on aggregate by virtue or two “away” Benfica goals scored in Greece’s Karaiskakis Stadium, before Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang popped up with a late winner to send the Londoners through.
“Everyone is happy tonight. This is what gives me power every day, take errors from the past and transform to strength,” said Aubameyang after the game.
“The team showed a lot of character and we deserved the win. It was a hard game.
“What we showed tonight will be an example for the future.”
As for away goals, Mikel Arteta will be well aware that it was this narrow margin that knocked Arsenal out of the competition at the hands of Olympiacos a year ago.
Arsenal surrendered a 1-0 first-leg advantage to lose 2-1 at the Emirates, with Youssef El Arabi scoring in the last minute of extra time.
Tottenham
Jose Mourinho has the League Cup and Europa League to fight for this season and Tottenham made easy work of Austrian side Wolfsberger over two legs, winning the last-32 clash 8-1 on aggregate.
The boss was able to rest some of his players that limped to a 2-1 loss to West Ham at the weekend, with Dele Alli, Carlos Vinicius and Gareth Bale getting on the scoresheet on Wednesday night.
“It was good, we got through,” said Mourinho.
“We won the match like we wanted and no (there was) need for the emergency plan, we played well for large periods and all four goals were beautiful.”
Spurs last faced Dynamo Zagreb in the UEFA Cup back in 2008, where Darren Bent scored a hat-trick in a thumping 4-0 victory.
Zagreb are currently top of the Czech league – locked on points with Osijek – and beat FK Krasnodar 4-2 on aggregate to reach the last-16 of the Europa League.
Rangers
Perhaps the most emphatic victory in the last-32 came from Glasgow, where Rangers beat Antwerp 9-5 over two legs, which included Thursday’s 5-2 thriller at Ibrox.
Gers boss Steven Gerrard is already on course to steer the club to a first Scottish Premiership title since 2011. And the manager said: “I’m very satisfied, the performance was outstanding in a lot of areas. The first three were top high-level goals. But, as a perfectionist, we still have to look at the areas we went wrong tonight.”
Rangers reached the last-16 of the Europa League last season before being dumped out by Bayer Leverkusen. In Slavia Prague they face just as tough a test this spring as they did a year ago.
Slavia stifled Leicester’s usually tub-thumping attack over two legs and goals from Lukas Provod and 19-year-old Abdallah Sima were enough to ease them past the Foxes.
Sima, from Senegal, is one of the most in-form strikers in Europe right now and boasts 14 goals from his last 17 club appearances.
How the Europa League last-16 draw works
There are 16 teams in this round of the competition and UEFA have confirmed that there is no seeding at this stage.
That means anyone can face anyone, and there is no preferential treatment via UEFA coefficients as to which team plays their first legs away from home.
UEFA had also confirmed that there would be fixture changes if there were stadium or city clashes – something that could impact on Arsenal and Tottenham is they are both drawn at home on the same night.
With regards to coronavirus restrictions, clubs have until Monday to notify UEFA of any issues about staging games.
The first legs will be played on Thursday 11 March, with the second legs scheduled for a week later on Thursday 18 March.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2Mt9V3x
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