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Valencia | v | Rapid Wien |
Fiorentina | v | Tottenham |
Borussia Dortmund | v | Porto |
Fenerbahce | v | Lokomotiv Moscow |
Anderlecht | v | Olympiakos |
Midtjylland | v | Manchester United |
Augsburg | v | Liverpool |
Sparta Praha | v | Krasnodar |
Galatasaray | v | Lazio |
Sion | v | Braga |
Shakhtar Donetsk | v | Schalke |
Marseille | v | Athletic Bilbao |
Sevilla | v | Molde |
Sporting CP | v | Leverkusen |
Villarreal | v | Napoli |
St-Etienne | v | Basel |
There are some interesting ties in this round, to be honest I'm pretty happy to avoid a trip to a really cold country in February which Sevilla, for example, have to deal with. It would have been great to have drawn Tottenham for the Soldado connection, though.
A lot of things can happen between now and February 18: at present Napoli are joint second in Serie A with Fiorentina, four points behind Internazionale. When we played Napoli in the round of 32 in 2010-11, Marek Hamsik scored their only goal in El Madrigal--he's still with the Italian side, but now they count on Gonzalo Higuain instead of Edinson Cavani to pop in the goals.
Some other interesting ties:
Valencia-Rapid Wien: we know the Austrians pretty well, but Valencia ought to advance if they get things together by then
Borussia Dortmund-Porto: quality in this tie for sure.
Fiorentina-Tottenham: Giuseppe Rossi was linked with Spurs several times over the years, now he will play against them. As with our tie, the question might be whether Fiore thinks they have a chance at the scudetto--if they figure EL is their best chance for glory, they can probably take Spurs.
What do you think is the pick of the round? And what do you make of our opponent?