Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas is looking forward to the Champions League draw on Friday morning but is hopeful of avoiding one of the bigger teams.
Both Villas-Boas’ Blues and Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal finished top of their respective groups which means they miss facing the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Inter in the next round.
But Marseille, Napoli and Lyon and Italian giants AC Milan all finished runners-up and Villas-Boas is hopeful they avoid a team with a lot of European history.
He told reporters: “There are, of course, a lot of top teams also in those runners-up spots.
“One team with seven European titles [AC Milan]Â and, for sure, those will be the ones to try to avoid.”
Other teams in the mix are Basel, Bayer Leverkusen – who Chelsea can’t meet as they were in the same group – and Russian sides CSKA Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg.
The latter two would make for a difficult test to any side as temperatures in Russia plummet during February and March but Villas-Boas isn’t shying away from the challenge.
He continued: “It happened to me last year in Porto twice and I have no problem with it.
“The synthetic pitch is also always difficult at CSKA but it’s something that we think our players can handle.
“Zenit is a different story, a natural pitch.
“Of course, very, very cold. But normal circumstances. Any team from now on is extremely difficult.
“We’ve had from now on Chelsea going out in all the knockout phases, from last 16, from last eight, from semi-finals and from the final.
“What we wanted to try to do is win the trophy but it gets pretty difficult now.”