Tactically Naive: The best things about every Champions League matchup

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of Tactically Naive, SB Nation’s weekly football/soccer/kickball column. This week we have mostly been sobbing quietly in the corner.

And this is the best bit of the competition, isn’t it? When the fluff of the group stage is out of the way and we get down to the knockout football. Two legs. Floodlights. One winner, one loser. PSG making a mess on the floor again. A nice chilled pint of delicious Gazprom.

Feel your eyes widen and your brain cool. Don’t fight it. Relax into it. These are the best teams. More Gazprom? There you go. Follow the ball. Back and forth. The same teams, the same games, over and over and over and over … close your eyes. And—

Huh? Oh? Sorry about that, drifted off a bit. Where were we? Ah yes. Today was the draw for the last 16 of the Champions League and — well, you remember how last week it was appalling how the same flippin’ teams get through every time? Turns out those same flippin’ teams getting drawn against one another makes everything okay. Let’s go tie by tie.

Borussia Dortmund vs. Paris Saint-Germain

This is the easiest one to call. Sure, Dortmund have had a fairly chaotic start to the season. But there’s a couple of months to go before the games, so one of two things will have happened: Either they’ll have sorted themselves out, or they’ll have fired Lucien Favre smack in the middle of the new manager bounce. Either way, PSG will be strolling along at the top of Ligue 1, hoping that this is the year they finally turn vast financial power into knockout results.

This is not the year. PSG are going to get humiliated, again, because they are cursed. Dark and ancient forces are arrayed against them, and you can’t spend your way past magic.

The only real question is: if Favre does go, which ex-Dortmund player is the narrative equivalent of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? What’s Karl-Heinz Riedle up to these days?

Real Madrid vs. Manchester City

Atalanta vs. Valencia

As a column, we at Tactically Naive are studiously, carefully neutral: we hate all football teams equally, only slightly less than we hate ourselves. But we might have to make an exception for Atalanta, who are the very picture of a neutral’s favourite. Cute football, plenty of goals, punching way above their weight and enjoying every minute of it. Curse them for making us feel again.

Atletico Madrid vs. Liverpool

Be nice to finally find out the answer to that spear vs. shield, fox vs. hound, unstoppable force vs. immovable object problem, won’t it?

Chelsea vs. Bayern Munich

This is going to be two very good games of football. Frank Lampard, man of the people, has put together a Chelsea side that play some very nice football but absolutely cannot defend, and we’ve already had the ridiculous 4-4 against Ajax and the only slightly less ridiculous 2-2 against Valencia. Against Robert Lewandowski? Might get biblical.

Sadly, the whole occasion will be ruined when Bayern attempt to buy Callum Hudson-Odoi at half-time of the second leg, and a fight breaks out between the sporting directors. Bayern later formally apologise for the actions of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, saying that he “should not have thrown himself elbow-first into Bruce Buck shouting ‘that’s for Drogba in 2012, you [redacted]’.”

Lyon vs. Juventus

Could be a bit one-sided, this. Juventus strolled through their group, while Lyon finished only a point ahead of Benfica and Zenit in Group G. But still, there’s hope. For while there are only a few footballers who we can imagine scoring a winning goal and then pulling out the Ronaldo look-at-me spin celebration, that list includes Lyon’s Memphis Depay. The adorable buffoon.

Tottenham Hotspur vs. RB Leipzig

Honestly, the footballing world cannot lose here. One of two beautiful things is guaranteed to happen. Either Spurs strike a blow for Proper Football by dispatching the cynical advertising construct of Red Bull Leipzig, or Jose Mourinho gets humiliated by a can of fizzy pop.

Napoli vs. Barcelona

It is, perhaps, the nature of Napoli, to bring hope wherever they go. For they are Italy’s greatest club. Not best, which is boring; not most successful, which is accountancy; but greatest, which is dignification made up of equal parts glory, failure, and romance. As such, they exist in this strange world of contradictory possibility. They could do anything. They could do nothing, beautifully. They could do both.

Will they do something against Barca? Probably not. Lionel Messi’s very good. But Napoli got the best of Maradona while Barcelona didn’t, and so they’re already the moral victors. For some rather smudged definition of “moral.”

Arsenal are not in the Champions League. But Arsenal have recently sacked Unai Emery, the most Europa League manager who ever Europa Leagued, so we can be fairly sure they’d quite like to get back to the big time. And it looks like they’ve found their route back: after a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of Champions League big-timers Manchester City over the weekend, they’ve decided to appoint the genius behind that drubbing.

Congratulations to the new manager of Arsenal: Pep Guardiola!

[puts finger to ear] Wait, what? Oh. Oh dear.

Congratulations to the new manager of Arsenal: Mikel Arteta?

He hasn’t got the job yet. But the City assistant with the fungible hair has been entertaining Arsenal dignitaries. Chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and club lawyer Huss Fahmy were photographed leaving Arteta’s home around 1:20 a.m. Obviously we can’t rule out that they were just caught up in a really intense Settlers of Catan session. But it looks suggestive.

Anyway, Arteta ticks a lot of boxes. First of all, the fact that City walked through Arsenal so easily suggests that their management team had done some decent thinking about Arsenal’s strengths and weaknesses, and how best to counter the former and exploit the latter. Sounds basic, but there were times when you wondered if Emery had ever thought to do the same.

Beyond the pointlessly cruel jokes at the expense of a man who probably tried his best, Arteta has played for Arsenal and has spent a couple of years making notes next to Guardiola. Those are things that might be important. Alternatively, they are things that might be completely meaningless. But those are the things that will get him the job, because honestly there aren’t many other options.

Europe’s biggest clubs are burning through managers faster than European football can produce them. If Arteta gets the job, then three of last season’s Big Six will be in the hands of former players with limited experience. And they’ll all be below Brendan Rodgers in the table. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Still, if you need a defensive coach, Mikel, don’t worry. Big Sam is here to help.