Champions League draw LIVE: Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City learn fate

Holders Chelsea will lead a trio of Premier League clubs into the Champions League quarter-finals as Europe’s elite battle it out for the continent’s biggest club prize.

The world champions, last season’s beaten finalists Manchester City and 2019 winners Liverpool will battle it out with European aristocrats Real Madrid and Bayern Munich among a field which also includes Portugal’s Benfica.

Here, we take a look at the quarter-finalists ahead of Friday’s draw.

Where to start with Villarreal? The 2021 Europa League champions were drawn in a group with Manchester United - who they beat to lift that trophy. They lost twice to the Red Devils in the group stages meaning they had to defeat Atalanta on matchday six to book a place in the knockouts. Three goals before half-time looked set to send they through but the Italian side responded with two of their own in the second half and left Villarreal with a tricky 10-minute period to deal with.

That done they face Juventus in the last-16 and played out a 1-1 draw at home. Perhaps the shock of the round came in their second leg as they swept aside Juve 3-0 in Turin with all the goals coming in the final 12 minutes. Can they keep this run going and back up their Europa League success by lifting the Champions League trophy?

Real Madrid have had a whirlwind of a campaign so far. They opened with a far from convincing 1-0 victory over Inter Milan away from home before being beaten 2-1 at the Bernabeu by Champions League newcomer Sheriff Tiraspol in matchday two. That was their only blemish of the group stages however and they topped Group D with five wins from six.

Their last-16 tie with Paris Saint-Germain was arguably the most difficult of all the quarter-finalists and it certainly looked that way after Kylian Mbappe won the first leg for PSG with a 94th minute strike. He doubled their advantage on aggregate with the opening goal of the second leg before Karim Benzema took advantage of some shocking PSG defending to net a 17 minute hat-trick and send the 13x champions into the next round.

One of the favourites to win the competition this year, Man City didn’t get off to the best of starts following a smashing 6-3 win over RB Leipzig with a 2-0 defeat away from home to PSG. They responded well though by winning the next three group games scoring 11 goals and conceding just three to put them in charge of the group. Another defeat away from home in the final matchday - to Leipzig this time - still didn’t stop them from topping Group A.

Pep Guardiola’s men then battered Sporting Lisbon 5-0 in the first leg of their last-16 tie to effectively progress to the next roud after 90 minutes. The second game was a more tepid affair with City keeping a clean sheet in a goalless draw.

Liverpool had a perfect run to the knockout stages becoming the first English club to win all six group stage matches in the Champions League. It was an even more impressive feat as the Reds were drawn in the so-called ‘group of death’ which included La Liga champions Atletico Madrid, AC Milan and Porto.

Jurgen Klopp’s men returned to Italy for the first leg of their round of 16 tie against Inter Milan and came up against stiff opposition. Roberto Firmino and Mo Salah both scored in the final 15 minutes of the game - in what proved to be two crucial goals - to send Liverpool back to Anfield with the advantage. An uncharacteristically poor performance followed and Inter Milan almost took advantage. They scored just after the hour mark but Alexis Sanchez’s red card mere minutes later meant they couldn’t push for a match saving equaliser and Liverpool closed out the game.

An indifferent group stage - for their standards - saw the reigning European champions finish second in Group H to Juventus. They lost 1-0 to the Italian side in the second gameweek before recovering with wins over Malmo and Zenit St. Petersburg. Chelsea’s improvement was cemented with a 4-0 victory over Juve at Stamford Bridge but they failed to win the group after being held to a 3-3 draw with Zenit on matchday six.

In the last-16 Thomas Tuchel’s men came up against French side Lille and put in a confident performance at home to take a two-goal lead into the second leg. They would have been nervous when Lille opened the scoring in that game but their class shone through with goals from Christian Pulisic and Cesar Azpilicueta completing a 4-1 aggregate win.

Benfica shocked everyone in the group stages by finishing above Barcelona in Group E. They lost twice to Bayern Munich in the group but were unbeaten against Barca (one win, one draw) and Dynamo Kyiv (one win, one draw) ensuring they pipped the Spanish giants to a place in the knockouts by a point.

In the last-16 they faced Ajax and a breathtaking first leg saw the Dutch side twice take the lead before Roman Yaremchuk squared the tie in the 72nd minute. Travelling to the Netherlands for their second leg, Darwin Nunez netted the only goal of the game as Benfica earned a 3-2 win on aggregate to reach the last eight.

It has so far been a near faultless campaign for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich.

They have seven wins from eight - the exception being a 1-1 draw with Salzburg in the last-16 first leg - have scored 30 goals and have conceded just five in their Champions League run this term.

They are one of the favourites to lift the trophy in Paris and a good quarter-final draw could define the success of Julian Nagelsmann’s debut season at the helm.

Atletico Madrid have done it the hard way in the Champions League this season. Diego Simeone’s men scraped through the group stages with a 3-1 victory over Porto on the final matchday propelling them above their rivals and sending them into the knockout rounds.

However, they were more composed and confident against Manchester United in the last-16. A late equaliser from Anthony Elanga in the first leg didn’t dampen Atleti’s spirits and they came to Old Trafford with a classic gameplan, winning 1-0 (2-1 on aggregate) and might just be hitting form at the right time.

The eight winners of the Champions League last-16 fixtures remain in the draw with three teams from England, three from Spain, one from Germany and one from Portugal. They are:

Manchester City (ENG)

Real Madrid (ESP)

Bayern Munich (GER)

Liverpool (ENG)

Chelsea (ENG)

Villarreal (ESP)

Benfica (POR)

Atlético Madrid (ESP)