So City, having progressed from the Europa League group stage now head into the first knockout round. They have been drawn against Greek Super League side Aris Salonika. This team progressed in the group after first having to qualify beating Jagiellonia Bialystock 4-3 over two legs and downing Austria Vienna 2-1 on aggregate.
To the group stage they went and really not to shabby results beating Atletico Madrid twice (1-0 at home and 3-2 away), a win and defeat with Rosenborg and finally a draw and loss to Bayer Leverkusen.
They are currently 5th in their domestic league with a game in hand although they have lost on each occasion they played the main boys on the block (Panathinaikos, Olympiakos and AEK Athens. In those games not a single goal was scored by Aris which bodes well for Manchester City. The ties will commence the week starting the 7th of February with the return leg a week later.
Now if City manage to progress through this round they face a stiffer test against either Besiktas or Dynamo Kiev.
Now Besiktas had to qualify for the group stage, but once in they only lost the one game, at home to FC Porto. They beat Rapid Wien and CSKA Sofia twice but couldn’t do anything but draw and lose to Porto. If we were to meet them in the last 16 it would probably be our toughest test in the competition to date.
Kiev actually had an easier route to this point, playing teams like Sheriff, BATE and AZ. Dynamo did the double over AZ but failed to get maximum points from the other two, lesser known teams. Only getting the single point against Sheriff and a draw in the opening fixture against BATE meant they only got a total of four points from that team.
The last 16 matches are scheduled for March 10th and 17th.
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