{"id":618047,"date":"2026-02-26T18:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/618047\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T18:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:05:13","slug":"who-arsenal-fc-will-face-in-champions-league-last-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/618047\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Arsenal FC will face in Champions League last 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arsenal<\/p>\n

The Gunners finished top of the table in the league phase, winning all eight fixtures, scoring the most goals and conceding the fewest of all 32 teams.<\/p>\n

A top two finish was then made official after a 3-1 victory in the San Siro, meaning Arsenal<\/a> are now assured of hosting the second legs in all of their knockout matches.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, finishing in the top eight in the current format – which came into play last season – ensured Mikel Arteta\u2019s side progressed straight through to the last 16 and avoided a two-legged knockout play-off tie.<\/p>\n

Who Arsenal will face in Champions League last 16?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a>\u2019s progression straight through to the last 16 means they were able to avoid a fixture congestion in February, though their re-arranged Premier League fixture against Wolves did not go to plan.<\/p>\n

As a result of finishing first in the league phase, Arsenal will face the winners of the play-offs involving the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th seeds.<\/p>\n

With the knockout phase play-offs reaching its conclusion on Wednesday night, Arsenal\u2019s potential opponents for the last 16 has been narrowed down from four to two.<\/p>\n

Both German sides took a 2-0 lead into their respective knockout phase play-offs second legs with Leverkusen playing out a goalless draw at home to Olympiacos on Tuesday night to reach the round of 16 for a second season in a row.<\/p>\n

It was far less straightforward for Dortmund, who threw away their advantage before half-time of the second leg, and then went further behind before Karim Adeyemi looked to have forced extra time.<\/p>\n

However, a terrible clearance from Gregor Kobel, which was followed by a hugely reckless foul from Ramy Bensebaini on Nikola Krstovic, saw Atalanta awarded a penalty in the final minute of second-half stoppage time… and Lazar Samardzic duly stepped up to send Atalanta into the last-16 stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gunners finished top of the table in the league phase, winning all eight fixtures, scoring the most…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":618048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[45],"tags":[72834,218,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-618047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-atalanta","tag-bayer-leverkusen","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116138260969948542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}