UEFA Champions League Round Of 16 Schedule

The Round of 16 draw for the Champions League was held today and Chelsea made away like bandits, drawing FC Copenhagen, arguably the weakest team in the entire field of 16. Meanwhile other English football clubs did not get so lucky. Manchester United got a decent draw with Marseilles, but Tottenham Hotspur is saddled with AC Milan, the best of the Group Stage runners-up, and Arsenal won the FC Barcelona sweepstakes.

While this is single elimination, the format of this is different than most American knockout tournaments. Instead of 1 game being played, 2 games are played. Seeing as the draw matched a group winner with a group runner-up, the group runner-up gets home field in the first leg, while the group winner gets home field on the 2nd and final leg. The team that advances is the team that wins on aggregate score of both games. In the case of a tie in the aggregate, the team that advances is the team that scored the most away goals. If away goals are tied, then the game goes to 30 minutes of extra time, split into 2 15-minute halves. If no goals are scored during 30 minutes of extra time, a penalty shootout will determine the winner. If goals are scored during the extra time, but both teams score the same number of goals by the end of 30 minutes, the away team advances by default of having more away goals in the total aggregate. If one team scores more goals than the other during these 30 minutes of extra time, that team will advance.

Now that I have thoroughly confused everyone reading this who is not a fan of soccer, let's get to the Round of 16 schedule (contrary to how it is done in America, the home teams are listed 1st; all times ET)

Leg 1

February 15
AC Milan vs. Tottenham Hotspur 2:45
Valencia vs. Schalke 04 2:45

February 16
AS Roma vs. Shakhtar Donetsk 2:45
Arsenal vs. Barcelona 2:45

February 22
FC Copenhagen vs. Chelsea 2:45
Lyon vs. Real Madrid 2:45

February 23
Marseille vs. Manchester United 2:45
Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich 2:45

Leg 2

March 8
Shakhtar Donetsk vs. AS Roma 2:45
FC Barcelona vs. Arsenal 2:45

March 9
Tottenham Hotspur vs. AC Milan 2:45
Schalke 04 vs. Valencia 2:45

March 15
Manchester United vs. Marseille 2:45
Bayern Munich vs. Inter Milan 2:45

March 16
Chelsea vs. FC Copenhagen 2:45
Real Madrid vs. Lyon 2:45