Sporting CP host Arsenal on Tuesday, with Real Madrid facing Bayern München later that same evening, and the contrast between those two fixtures tells you almost everything about where the weight of expectation currently sits in this competition. Arsenal go into their first leg having just been knocked out of the FA Cup by a Championship club 48 hours earlier, carrying the specific psychological bruise of a side that keeps being told they are ready and keeps finding reasons to doubt it. Sporting meanwhile, arrive on the back of one of the most remarkable comebacks of the round of 16, trailing Bodø/Glimt 3-0 after the first leg before winning 5-3 on aggregate after extra time.
The Madrid vs Bayern tie is the heavyweight collision the draw promised it would be. Bayern arrives in form, a side that has scored 97 Bundesliga goals this season, nine points clear at the top of the table, playing with a confidence and an attacking fluency that suggests they believe this is their year and Real Madrid, as ever, will simply look at those credentials, absorb them, and begin their psychological work in the tunnel before the first whistle. The history between these two clubs in April is long and mostly cruel, and the question of who blinks first in the Bernabéu on Tuesday night will go a long way to deciding which side of the bracket reaches Budapest in May.
For Arsenal, the question is simpler and more urgent can they show, on a European night, that Saturday’s FA Cup exit was the exception rather than the pattern?
