Izuchukwu OkosiDraws for the Round of 16 stages of the UEFA Champions League was held in Nyon, France on Monday afternoon with some great games in prospect.
Sadly for football faithful around the world, there will be no face-off between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo after the initial draw pitched Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United together.
The European football organising body, UEFA, had to postpone for a few hours the draw after some technical errors saw some teams wrongly paired.
The top of the bill fixture is the Paris Saint-Germain versus Real Madrid clash.
English teams, Manchester United and Liverpool also got tricky oppositions with Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan.
Current European champions Chelsea seemingly got the ‘luck of the draw’ with a relatively easy LOSC Lille the team for them to overcome. The fixture came out of the pots in both draws.
The first legs are scheduled for February 15th,16th, 22nd, 23rd February 2022 while the second leg ties will hold March 8th,9th, 15th and 16th 2022 with kickoff time for all matches billed for 9 pm Nigerian time.
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UEFA confirmed a slight change to the format of knockout stages with the away goals rule no longer to be used.
Ties level after 180 minutes will go to extra time irrespective of the number of goals each team has scored at home and away. If the teams still cannot be separated after the additional 30 minutes, the tie goes to a penalty shoot-out, UEFA informed.
Saint Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena will stage the final of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League, with the game scheduled for 28 May 2022.
The last-16 ties
Red Bull Salzburg vs Bayern Munich
Sporting CP vs Manchester City
Benfica vs Ajax
Chelsea vs Lille
Atletico Madrid vs Manchester United
Villarreal vs Juventus
Inter vs Liverpool
PSG vs Real Madrid
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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