Real Madrid’s Isco, right, duels for the ball with Manchester City’s Kyle Walker during the Champions League round of 16 on Feb. 26. Manu Fernandez/Associated Press
This year’s Champions League will be completed as a 12-day knockout tournament from the quarterfinals onward and played entirely at two stadiums in Lisbon, Portugal, European soccer’s governing body announced Wednesday. The annual club competition was halted during the round of 16 in March because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig, Atalanta and Atletico Madrid already have qualified for the quarterfinals after winning their two-leg round-of-16 matchups. The remaining four matches in the round of 16 will be played Aug. 7-8, either at home stadiums or in Portugal, depending on whether local restrictions on sporting events have been lifted. If the games must be played in Portugal, they will take place at either Dragão Stadium in Porto and the D. Afonso Henriques Stadium in Guimarães.
The remaining round of 16 schedule (scheduled home team listed first):
• Juventus vs. Lyon (Lyon won first matchup, 1-0)
• Manchester City vs. Real Madrid (Manchester City won first matchup, 2-1)
• Bayern Munich vs. Chelsea (Bayern Munich won first matchup, 3-0)
• Barcelona vs Napoli (first matchup was 1-1 draw)
The final eight teams will gather for a knockout tournament beginning Aug. 12, with games split between Stadium of Light and José Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon. The semifinals will take place Aug. 18-19 and the final on Aug. 23 at the same stadiums.
UEFA will assess in July whether fans will be allowed into the stadiums in Portugal and in Germany for the remainder of the second-tier Europa League games. The Europa League games will take place in four German cities – Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen – between Aug. 10 and Aug. 21.
“Things are changing rapidly,” UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said Wednesday.
Portugal has one of Europe’s lowest death tolls from COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, and this week further reopened its doors to international tourists.
This year’s Champions League final was supposed to be held in Istanbul, which will now host the 2021 championship game. The scheduled future hosts – St. Petersburg, Munich and London – will now slide back one year.
Nearly all professional soccer ground to a halt because of the coronavirus in March but leagues in Germany and Spain have resumed regular-season play in empty stadiums, with the English Premier League to follow suit starting on Wednesday.
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