Manchester City have drawn Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League quarter-finals. City will play the first leg at home on 6 or 7 April before the away fixture a week later, both of which could be moved to other venues in light of travel restrictions during the pandemic.
Should City reach the semi-finals they will play either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain, the finalists of last year’s competition.
Dortmund’s brilliant young striker Erling Haaland will be excited at the prospect of facing City, whom his father Alf-Inge Haaland played for during the early 2000s. Haaland, 20, has been linked with a move to join Pep Guardiola’s team this summer.
For City it presents a reasonable draw, with Dortmund only fifth in the Bundesliga and below their best this season, but Dortmund’s menacing and unpredictable attack, which includes England’s Jadon Sancho and the captain Marco Reus, will not be straightforward to contain.
City are closing in on the Premier League title, have a League Cup final against Tottenham to look forward to and are in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, but Guardiola has made no secret of the fact that the Champions League holds a special place in his heart. The trophy has eluded him for a decade despite building spectacular teams and Bayern and now City in that period, and this appears to be one of his best opportunities to collect a third European Cup as manager – something only Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane have achieved.
City comfortably saw off Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach in the last round, winning 4-0 across on aggregate.
The quarter-final ties will be played over two legs on the 6/7 April and 13/14 April. The semi-finals will take place over 27/28 April and 4/5 May, before the final on Saturday 29 May at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul.
