Less than 8 months after their meeting in the final match of the UEFA Champions League, Paris Saint-Germain collides again with Bayern Munich on the road in which the French capital's team seeks to end the season by winning its first title in the prestigious European championship.
The Bavarian team foiled the adventure of the Parisian team last season, and crowned the title after beating it with a clean goal in the final, which was held in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on 23 August.
And now, the continental championship will witness another confrontation between the two teams when they meet on Wednesday in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the current version of the tournament.
Porto also meets Chelsea, England, on Wednesday, while Manchester City, Borussia, Dortmund, and Real Madrid, Liverpool, will meet tonight in the other two games by going the same round.
Bayern will play the match the day after tomorrow in the absence of scorer Robert Lewandowski, who suffered a knee injury while participating with his country.
But the Bavarian team received strong moral support last week, with the precious victory over its direct rival, Leipzig, at the top of the German league table, to widen the difference with second-placed Leipzig to 7 points and tighten its grip on the top of the Bundesliga.
Certainly, Lewandowski’s absence will give St. Germain some happiness, but the French team is also suffering from many problems.
Saint-Germain lost the summit meeting last Saturday night in the French League, dropping to second place in the competition table, 3 points behind Lille.
In the Bayern match, Saint-Germain will miss the efforts of its distinguished player, Marco Verratti, who tested positive for the Corona virus last week.
On Monday, the club also announced that its defender Alessandro Florenzi has also been infected with Corona and has been quarantined.
After leaving empty-handed from the quarter-finals in the past three seasons, Manchester City appears to be a candidate to pass this role in the current season, especially with the tremendous boost he is getting from his distinguished career in the Premier League this season.
Manchester City have suffered only one defeat since last December, and the team leads the competition table by 14 points ahead of its neighbor and direct rival Manchester United.
Dortmund is participating in the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 2017, but the instability and stability of the team over the course of the current season has drawn sharp criticism from Hans Joachim Vatzke, the club's managing director.
"I have always defended the team, but I cannot continue this after the performance I saw in the Frankfurt match," Vatzke said after the 1-2 defeat by Interracht Frankfurt.
Real Madrid will meet Liverpool in a repeat of the confrontation that brought them together in 2018 when Real beat the English team to win the title after that.
The French coach Zinedine Zidane - Real's coach - is running this confrontation without Sergio Ramos, the captain of the team and his defender, due to the injury.
Porto will meet Chelsea in a difficult confrontation after Porto ousted Juventus and star Cristiano Ronaldo in the final price.
Porto's coach Sergio Conceicao misses in this match the efforts of the team's top scorer Sergio Oliveira due to injury.
Due to strict travel restrictions and procedures in light of the "Corona" pandemic, the two-leg matches between Porto and Chelsea will be held in the Spanish city of Seville.