Manchester City’s reward for sealing their place in the Champions League knockout play-off stage is a tie with either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.
Pep Guardiola‘s men went into Wednesday night’s final league phase match outside of the top 24 – needing victory to progress into the next round.
And they looked to be heading out as they went into the break 1-0 down courtesy of Raphael Onyedika’s strike just before half-time.
But they fought back in the second period thanks to an equaliser from Mateo Kovacic, an own goal from Joel Ordonez and a strike from substitute Savinho.
City‘s 3-1 victory has seen them finish 22nd in the standings, resulting in them grouped in a pair with 21st-placed Celtic, who lost 4-2 away at Aston Villa.
The two British clubs will learn their fate over whether they will either face Real or Bayern, who ended in 11th and 12th place respectively in Friday’s draw.
Because Real and Bayern finished between ninth and 16th, they will have the second leg of their play-off tie at home [February 18/19], with the first leg to take place on February 11/12.
Should City draw Bayern, it would see former captain Vincent Kompany return to the Etihad Stadium.
While a meeting with Real would see the Citizens presented with the chance to exact revenge on Carlo Ancelotti‘s men, who dumped them out on penalties in the quarter-finals last term.
Should City and Celtic emerge past Real and Bayern, they would then play either Atletico Madrid or Bayer Leverkusen in the last-16.
As for Liverpool, Arsenal and Villa, they have all sealed their place in the last-16 having finished in the top eight and will not be competing in the knockout phase.
But that doesn’t mean they have been handed an easy route into the quarter-finals.
Liverpool [paired with Barcelona], finished top of the 36-team table despite losing 3-2 at PSV Eindhoven.
The Merseyside outfit will now face the winner out of either Monaco/Brest vs Paris Saint-Germain/Benfica.
As for Arsenal [paired with Inter Milan], they finished third in the table after coming from behind to beat Girona 2-1 in Spain.
Their reward will be a last-16 tie against either Feyenoord/Juventus or AC Milan/PSV.
Meanwhile Villa [paired with Lille] secured the final automatic last-16 spot by finishing eighth with dramatic 4-2 win over Celtic which saw Morgan Rogers fire in a hat-trick.
Unai Emery’s men will now be drawn against the winner of Sporting Lisbon/Club Brugge vs Atalanta/Borussia Dortmund.
Champions League matchday eight results
- Aston Villa 4-2 Celtic
- Barcelona 2-2 Atalanta
- Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 Sparta Prague
- Bayern Munich 3-1 Slovan Bratislava
- Borussia Dortmund 3-1 Shakhtar Donetsk
- Brest 0-3 Real Madrid
- Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 AC Milan
- Girona 1-2 Arsenal
- Inter Milan 3-0 Monaco
- Juventus 0-2 Benfica
- Lille 6-1 Feyenoord
- Man City 3-1 Brugge
- PSV 3-2 Liverpool
- RB Salzburg 1-4 Atletico Madrid
- Sporting Lisbon 1-1 Bologna
- Sturm Graz 1-0 RB Leipzig
- Stuttgart 1-4 PSG
- Young Boys 0-1 Red Star Belgrade
The Champions League draw to determine the knockout play-off round is on Friday from 11am.
Each of the clubs in the next round will play once on a Tuesday and once on a Wednesday.
The draw for the last-16 takes place on February 21, where the top eight seeded teams will find out which side of the draw they will be in.
And those that finished from first to eighth will play their second leg at home.