Juventus’ name was the fifth of eight teams to be pulled out of the interestingly-shaped bowl holding mini footballs. The sixth just so happened to be a team that Juve has seen quite a bit of in Europe during the last decade or so.
For the sixth and seventh times since 2013, Juve will play a Champions League game against Real Madrid. Last season it was in the Champions League final. Two years before that it was in the Champions League semifinals. This year, as we found out at Friday’s draw in Nyon, it will be in the Champions League quarterfinals.
The first leg will be in Turin on April 3. The return leg takes place eight days later on April 11 at the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid.
I guess Juve will have to go through Madrid if they want to get to Kiev.
Juventus vs Real Madrid #UCLDraw pic.twitter.com/sxqkVZvjLQ
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) March 16, 2018
As we outlined in our quarterfinal draw preview on Thursday, it’s pretty hard to get a consistent gauge as to where this Real Madrid team is at. They’ve been good in the Champions League because Cristiano Ronaldo has scored about 159 goals in the competition this season. But, at the same time, they’ve been all over the place in La Liga.
But, they’re Real Madrid. They’re good even with their faults. Just as Juventus is still a quality team even though we know this edition of the squad isn’t perfect.
Remember, both Miralem Pjanic and Medhi Benatia will miss the first leg of the quarterfinals after picking up yellow cards against Tottenham a couple of weeks ago.
Ah, storylines. There will be plenty of them before the ball is kicked off at Allianz Stadium in a little less than three weeks.