Will two Balkan teams reach the 1/8 finals?
Krasnodar will be the only representative of Russia in the Europa League playoffs.
The Southerners finished third in the Champions League group with Chelsea, Sevilla and Rennom and dropped to the second-strongest European competition.
Their rival in the 1/16 finals will be Dynamo Zagreb, which beat CSKA in the K quartet, including beating the army team in Croatia.
Now another national team can take revenge for the army team.
Krasnodar will take part in the playoffs of the second most important European Cup for the fourth time in history.
In the two previous cases, the team made it to the 1/8 finals.
The southerners failed only in their first attempt - in 2016.
Then they lost without a chance to Sparta (0: 1, 0: 3).
It is not so easy to call Murad Musayev's charges the favorites of the confrontation.
In particular, concerns were caused by the last test match of Krasnodar, in which the current bronze medalist of the Russian Championship conceded four unanswered goals from Lokomotiv.
In addition, the team lost main left-back Christian Ramirez, who received a serious knee injury, for several months.
Participation in at least the first match and Ari with Dmitry Stotsky, who have not played in any winter friendlies, is questionable.
At the same time, the club has not yet made transfers in the new year.
Thus, the strongest Croatian team has a good chance for the second time in the last three years to break into the 1/8 finals of the LE.
In addition to Dynamo, Crvena Zvezda also made it to the playoffs of the tournament from the Balkan teams.
However, the Serbian champion will have to work a miracle in order to beat Milan, because the Rossoneri are fighting for the first place in Serie A.
But Stefano Pioli's wards treat the second most powerful European Cup with due seriousness.
Even for the group stage matches, the team, as a rule, came out in close to the main composition.
In particular, veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic took part in four games.
If both Balkan teams manage to reach the 1/8 finals, this will be the first time in history when two teams from the countries of the former Yugoslavia will make it so far at once.
Will the Premier League lose at least one of its representatives?
The playoffs of the current LE draw turned out to be as representative as possible.
It is enough that four English teams will play in the 1/16 finals for the first time in eight years.
But in 1/8, such a number of teams from this country have never taken part.
Arsenal, Leicester and Tottenham started in the tournament initially, and Manchester United finished third in the Champions League group, leaving Leipzig ahead.
Only the Gunners are having a not-so-good season and have little chance of making their way into the new Champions League season through the national championship.
In the last four matches of the Premier League, the team won only one victory.
Therefore, success in the LE may be the only opportunity for her to break into the main European Cup.
In addition, Arsenal, which reached the semifinals in 2018 and the LE final a year later, are eager to finally win the trophy.
In a similar position is "Benfica", which in the new year seriously stalled, dropped to fourth place in the tournament table of the Portuguese championship and almost lost the chances of a championship.
In a kind of duel of "wounded animals" surprises are quite possible.
The departure of the rest of the English teams will be a big surprise.
Manchester United will face off against Real Sociedad.
The San Sebastians, although they started the season well and even led the Example for a long time, then fell into a serious crisis and won only one victory in the 11th to 21st rounds of the national championship, simultaneously flying out of the Spanish Cup.
Nevertheless, the departure of several leaders in the summer and autumn for the team did not pass without leaving a trace.
"Manchester United" after the failure in the Champions League must be rehabilitated in front of the fans, at least in the LE.
Leicester, who are currently tied for second in the Premier League standings with the Mancunians, will face Slavia.
On the one hand, Brendan Rogers' charges scored a good move in 2021 and even defeated Liverpool on Saturday, and also reached the quarterfinals of the National Cup.
On the other hand, Slavia is quite ready to surprise you.
So, in the season before last, the Prague team reached the LE quarterfinals, where they lost only to the future Chelsea trophy holder.
Now they will try to stop another British band.
Finally, Wolfsberg, who beat CSKA, will try to stop Tottenham, which is in crisis and suffered four defeats in the last five Premier League games and, in addition, was eliminated from the National Cup.
The Austrian team has nothing to lose, because it is spending its third season in European competitions and for the first time reached the UEL playoffs.
The company "Wolfsberg" will be almost permanent champion of the country "Salzburg", which will play with "Villarreal".
Will Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv confirm the favorites?
Ukraine was represented by two teams in the first round of the playoffs.
The honor of the country will be defended by Shakhtar and Dynamo.
Both teams took part in the Champions League group stage, but failed to break through further.
If the Kievites initially had no chance to impose competition on Juventus and Barcelona, the Pitmen lost second place in the quartet of Borussia Mönchengladbach only by additional indicators.
But in LE, both got quite feasible rivals.
The current semi-finalist of the tournament, Shakhtar, will play against the Israeli champion Maccabi from Tel Aviv, who made it to the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
Dynamo will face Club Brugge for the second time in the past three years.
In 2019, the rivals met in the third qualifying round of the Champions League, and then the Belgian team was stronger (3: 3, 1: 0) and fought its way further.
But on the way to the group stage of the main European Cup this season, the Kievites in the playoff round did not leave any chances to another representative of this country, Ghent (2: 1, 3: 0).
Will both German teams remain in the fight?
Two teams were held in the playoffs of the LE and Germany.
The rest of the German clubs continue to play in the Champions League.
However, both Bayer and Hoffenheim reached the round of 16 not in their best condition.
The teams won only a couple of victories in the Bundesliga in 2021 and dropped significantly in the standings.
Sebastian Hoenez's charges dropped to 12th place.
They also managed to lose in the National Cup to rivals from the lower divisions.
To top it all off, both Leverkusen and Sinsheim are experiencing serious staffing problems.
Bayer has lost Julian Baumgartlinger, Lars Bender and Karim Bellarabi due to injuries.
Hoffenheim are missing top scorer Andrei Kramaric and two key defenders Haward Nordthwait and Kevin Akpoguma.
Young Boys and Molde are considered underdogs in the confrontation with the German teams, and therefore they have nothing to lose.
Bayer's rival has suffered only one defeat in the current season of the Swiss championship and almost guaranteed himself the title.
The only problem for the team will be the lack of 18 goalscorer in all tournaments, Jean-Pierre Nsame, who received a stupid red card in the last round of the group stage match.
For the first time in history, Molde will try to get into the 1/8 finals of the European Cup.
At the same time, the team played the last match almost two months ago, since the Norwegian championship is played according to the "spring-autumn" system, and the next season in the country starts only in April.
Will the Italian teams win six out of six wins?
Italian teams have traditionally played successfully in European competitions, but in the Europa League (and the predecessor of the UEFA Cup tournament) they cannot become champions since 1999.
Then the trophy went to Parma.
Last year, Inter reached the final and were considered the favorite of the confrontation with Sevilla, but were defeated.
This time, three teams will start in the playoffs at once.
Apart from Milan, these are Napoli and Roma.
And they all have to advance to the next round.
The Neapolitans, who beat Juventus in Serie A on the weekend, will face off against European debutant Granada, who have not won a single victory in the last five matches of Example.
In turn, Roma, which started in the current UEL draw in the group stage, will meet with the third Portuguese team, Braga.
The Romans have never made it past the 1/8 finals of the tournament before.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who has already won the LE with Manchester United, will help the capital team achieve success.
In the current season, he has 11 goals and the same number of assists in all tournaments.
Will Lille take revenge on Ajax?
Equally interesting is the confrontation between the leaders of the championships of France and the Netherlands "Lille" and "Ajax", respectively.
If the Amsterdam players are six points ahead of the closest pursuer PSV and have a match in reserve 12 rounds before the finish, Christophe Galtier's players are fighting a fierce battle for the title with PSG and Lyon.
At the same time, both teams are now on the move, which guarantees an interesting spectacle for the fans.
Ajax have won six straight wins in the Eredivisie.
Lille achieved similar success in Ligue 1, but over the weekend they unexpectedly parted with the outsider Brest (0: 0).
It is curious that the last time the paths of rivals crossed last season was in the Champions League group stage.
Eric ten Haga's team then won two confident victories (2: 0, 3: 0).
Now the opponent will try to take revenge, and at the same time for the second time in history and for the first time in 11 years to reach the 1/8 finals of the LE.
The match with Lille could have been the last in Ajax for Quincy Promes before returning to Spartak, but the midfielder was not included in the application for the game.