What to watch in Champions League knockout phase, Part 2: Klopp, Bayern Munich renew hostilities

The UEFA Champions League round of 16 is in full swing, and the last four first legs will be played this week. Barcelona will travel to face Lyon and Liverpool will host Bayern Munich on Tuesday, while Wednesday features another mega-clash between Juventus and Atletico Madrid and Manchester City faces FC Schalke for the fourth time ever. Here is a look at the key storylines from those ties.

Heavy-metal football meets an old familiar foe

Jurgen Klopp is no stranger to Bayern Munich. The last time the Bavarians failed to win the Bundesliga, it was Klopp’s fearless and savvy-spending Borussia Dortmund outfit raising the trophy in 2011 and 2012.

Now, Klopp has engineered a revival at Liverpool, with the Reds currently second in the Premier League on point differential (albeit with a game in hand) coming off a Champions League final berth last May. Liverpool has won Europe five times, and in order to add a sixth trophy it will need to beat Bayern, which has slogged along this season relative to its standards.

Bayern enjoys 62.5 percent of the possession in its matches, second only to Manchester City in all of Europe, but Klopp’s side doesn’t need the ball to be lethal with its build-ups and counters, and will press the bejesus out of Bayern at both venues with younger legs to boot. Liverpool built towering leads in first legs at home last campaign and rode their waves to knock out both City and Roma.

However, the Reds might be without a handful of starters Tuesday at Anfield, including the center back pairing of Virgil van Dijk (suspension) and Dejan Lovren (hamstring) and striker Roberto Firmino (virus).

Bayern has receive an injury boost as goalkeeper Manuel Neuer returned from a hand injury last Friday and settled in after conceding two early goals in a win over Augsburg. There’s more than enough experience in Bayern’s squad to render advancement unsurprising.

Still, there’s an air of finality to this season in the Bavarian capital, while Liverpool is firmly on the rise. It should be an entertaining affair, with the winner instantly becoming one of the remaining favorites.

Ronaldo faces tough test in knockout phase debut with Juve

Cristiano Ronaldo scored just once as Juventus won Group H, and the Italian giants will need much more from him to crack one of Europe’s perennially impregnable defensive sides.

Atletico Madrid isn’t much different this season, having yielded a paltry 23 goals between La Liga and the Champions League, seven of which came in lopsided defeats against Dortmund and Real Madrid.

That said, Ronaldo has 21 goals and 10 assists this season and is still grading out as one of Europe’s top attackers even at age 34. The reason Juve brought him in was not to run away with Serie A, which it’s done without him and is currently doing again. It was to win the Champions League, something the Old Lady hasn’t done since 1996 and something Ronaldo has done at the excruciating expense of Atleti twice in the past five years.

But Diego Simeone’s side is structurally sound and physical all over the pitch, which could hamper Juventus’ tendency toward skill and finesse. There figure to be goals on offer between Antoine Griezmann and Chelsea loanee Alvaro Morata, too. This might be as close a call as any of the Round of 16 matchups.

Messi, Barcelona can’t goof around with Lyon

Every team is in the Champions League for a reason, but every team isn’t Barcelona.

Led by Lionel Messi’s ageless wizardry, Barcelona is again expected to make a deep run in Europe, although that hasn’t happened much recently. Apart from lifting the trophy in 2015, Barcelona hasn’t advanced past the quarterfinals in the past five seasons, and another failure won’t sit well with the club or the fans.

Even if Barcelona loses to Lyon – which both Man City and Paris Saint-Germain have done this season – making up the deficit seems a reasonable ask at the Nou Camp in two weeks’ time. That said, Barcelona is about to embark on a difficult period of fixtures, with Sevilla away in La Liga and a pair of El Clasicos against Real Madrid in both the league and the Spanish Cup.

The Catalans have limped a bit lately, with veteran defender Gerard Pique publicly lamenting the club’s mental state over the weekend. And while Lyon forward Nabil Fakir is suspended, the French side has a variety of other attackers (Memphis Depay, Bertrand Traore, Moussa Dembele) that can score at a given moment.

Barcelona can rev up its push for trophies with a suspense-less performance against Lyon. Given recent evidence, maybe we should expect the opposite.

Can McKennie, Schalke shock Manchester City?

U.S. international Weston McKennie has been one of the best and most versatile players for Schalke this season, and he’s about to get arguably his biggest test.

Pep Guardiola’s City squad has found its stride and is a serious threat to win Europe. In order for Schalke to spring the upset, McKennie and Co. will need to be disciplined and resilient to avoid being overwhelmed by the Citizens, who are healthy and bursting at the seams with world-class talent.

Schalke has fallen off considerably this season, currently 14th in the Bundesliga and arguably only in the Champions League knockout stages because of a weak group. McKennie was deployed as a right back over the weekend, and he can shift to deep-lying midfielder if need to disrupt City’s attacks.

The key might be to hold City scoreless in the first leg, which would send Schalke to the Etihad on March with the away goals rule in its back pocket. If that happens, who knows?

Joey Gulino is the editor of Yahoo Soccer and moonlights as a writer. Follow him on Twitter at @JGulinoYahoo.

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