Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has admitted he was relieved to avoid Manchester City in the Champions League draw on Friday.
City have been placed in the opposite side of the draw to their Premier League title rivals, meaning they can only meet in the final of the competition. The Blues will face Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals, while Liverpool come up against Benfica.
The semi-finals were also decided during Friday’s ceremony, with City set to face either Chelsea or Real Madrid should they overcome Atletico. Liverpool, meanwhile, will face either Bayern Munich or Villarreal should they beat Benfica.
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City and Liverpool have been drawn together just once in Europe, with the Reds coming out on top in their quarter-final meeting back in 2018. However, they have clashed plenty of times domestically over the years, with the two sides regularly battling it out for the league title in recent years.
This season, both sides are looking to create some history, with City targeting the treble, while Liverpool can still complete the quadruple, having already won the Carabao Cup last month. Having been kept apart in the cup competitions so far, the two sides could soon meet in the FA Cup and Champions League if they remain in both tournaments.
For now, though, Klopp admits he was relieved not to have been drawn against City – or Chelsea for that matter – in Europe.
"I would have taken everybody but the only thing I didn’t want was an English team," said Klopp when asked about the draw on Friday afternoon.
"We had that in the past and we went through, we played a final against an English team, it’s absolutely fine, in the final anyway you take whoever you get. We play [the English clubs] often enough during a season and it’s good if you play somebody else."
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