When is the Champions League last 16 draw? Fixture details, dates and next round opponents revealed
The Champions League last 16 draw is almost here - this is everything you need to know
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The final four teams to qualify for the Champions League last 16 will be confirmed tonight following the completion of the play-off round.
Newcastle United joined Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in the next round after breezing past Qarabag 9-3 on aggregate on Tuesday night.
With the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich also already in the Champions League last 16, plus Real Madrid and holders Paris Saint-Germain attempting to qualify from their play-off ties, it promises to be a mouth-watering draw.
When is the Champions League last 16 draw and how can I watch it?
The draw takes place on Friday, February 27 at 11am GMT at UEFA's HQ in Nyon, Switzerland.
It will be streamed live on UEFA.com, UEFA.tv and the official UEFA Champions League app.
How does the draw work?
In typical UEFA fashion, the last 16 draw isn't as straightforward as you might expect.
The 16 clubs are comprised of the top eight teams in the league phase, who qualified automatically for the last 16, and the eight sides to progress from the play-off round. So far, so simple.
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However, the eight seeded clubs have already been paired based on their finishing positions in the league phase - so Arsenal and Bayern Munich, who were first and second, have been paired together, as have the third and fourth-placed teams, and so on.
The seeded clubs are drawn into one of two brackets of the last 16 draw against the relevant winners of the play-offs, whose position was determined by the play-off draw. That is why Newcastle, for example, already know that they will play either Chelsea or Barcelona in the last 16.
All teams will be allocated a certain bracket on Friday, which means they will know their potential opponents in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
When do the last-16 ties take place?
First-leg fixtures will take place on March 10-11, with the second legs the following week.
Quarter-final ties are then scheduled for April 7-8 and 14-15, with the semi-finals held across April 28-29 and May 5-6.
At the end of it all, two teams will meet in the final at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on Saturday, May 30, to fight for the right to be crowned champions of Europe.
James Roberts is a freelance sports journalist working for FourFourTwo. He has spent the past three years as a sports sub-editor for various national newspapers and started his career at the Oxford Mail, where he covered Oxford United home and away.
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