Identify eight teams into the quarter-finals of the Champions League

These eight teams include Bayern Munich, Benfica, Chelsea, Inter, Man City, Milan, Napoli and Real Madrid. Serie A leads with three representatives, the Premier League has two, and Benfica is the only team outside the Top 5 European leagues. And Napoli is the only team to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in the tournament. They and Man City have never won the Champions League or the C1 Cup before.

This is the first time since 2006 that three Italian representatives have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League. At that time, Inter, Milan and Juventus participated, but only Milan reached the semi-finals. Even Milan was eliminated by Barca in the semi-finals that year, leaving Italy without a representative in the final.

This season, except for Juventus who failed to pass the group stage and had to go down to the Europa League, the remaining three representatives of Serie A attending the Champions League were present in the 1/8 round and into the quarterfinals.

Last night, Napoli crushed Frankfurt 3-0 in the second leg at home to continue with a total score of 5-0. With 25 goals available, Napoli is the club with the most goals in the Champions League this season. The new league history records three other Italian clubs scoring more goals in a season than Napoli, namely Juventus with 30 goals in the 2002-2003 season, Inter 26 goals in the 2002-2003 season and Lazio 26 goals in the 1999-2000 season.

This is also the first time Napoli has reached the quarter-finals of the C1/Champions League Cup in its 118-year history. When the legendary Diego Maradona, Napoli twice attended the C1 Cup: losing to Real in the first round of the 1987-1988 season and losing to Spartak Moscow in the 1/8 round of the 1990-1991 season. They entered the Champions League seven times between 2011-2020, including three times in the 1/8 round, three times in the group stage and once in the preliminary round.

This season's quarterfinals also have four Italian coaches present, including Carlo Ancelotti, Luciano Spalletti, Stefano Pioli and Simone Inzaghi. Germany has two coaches, Julian Nagelsmann and Roger Schmidt (Benfica). The other two representatives are Pep Guardiola and Graham Potter.

The draw for the quarter-finals and semi-finals took place at 6pm on Friday, March 17, Hanoi time, at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, after the second leg of the 1/8 round of the Europa League and Europa Conference League ended.

Every team will have to meet, regardless of the same league or the same group. According to Football Italia, Friday the 17th is considered unlucky for Italians, similar to Friday the 13th for many other countries.

The draws can create four pairs of matches that have never appeared in the history of European Cups, including: Benfica - Man City, Inter - Man City, Napoli - Inter and Milan - Napoli. Inter have met Milan four times, drawn two, lost two and have yet to win a match.

The pair with the most presence is Bayern - Real with 26 confrontations, of which the German representative won 11, drew three and lost 12 matches. Next is the Inter - Real pair when these two teams have met 19 matches, the Spanish club won 10, drew two and lost seven matches. Real have met seven opponents with at least three games left, and have a head-to-head index that only loses to Chelsea and Benfica.

According to the supercomputer of FiveThirtyEight, Man City is the strongest candidate with a 33% chance of being crowned. Following are Bayern (23%), Real (14%), Napoli (11%), Benfica (7%), Chelsea (6%), Inter (4%) and Milan (2%).

The first leg of the quarterfinals will take place on April 11 and 12, two matches a day, and the second leg will be played a week later. The first leg of the semi-finals begins on May 9 and 10, the return leg also takes place after a week. The Champions League final is set on June 10 at Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. This place used to take place the classic comeback to help Liverpool beat Milan in the final in 2005.